A (5:57)

I would find it very difficult to defend a position in either direction on bitcoin at the moment if you're actually looking at it short term. I mean it's been locked in, as I said, at 90,000 for so long. But listen, I want to stick to the Fed. I don't want to take for granted that people know what happened or have seen the video. So I'm just going to play you the video of Fed Chairman Powell. The story is that the DOJ has is investigating Chairman Powell for criminal charges purportedly about the building. Obviously we all saw the most amazing memeable clip of all time when Trump and Powell are standing there in their hard hats. The most awkward interaction I've ever seen between two human beings. Arguably. Well now the it's gone beyond rhetoric. But Powell's response is all the quiet parts out loud. And I'm actually quite shocked that he actually said this. So let's just watch it really quickly and then we can get the reaction.

C (6:49)

Good evening.

A (6:50)

One second.

C (6:51)

On Friday, the Department of justice served the Federal Reserve.

A (6:55)

We're gonna try that again.

C (6:56)

Threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure. This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role. The Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead, monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation. I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor. Focused.

A (8:25)

So, all right, you get the idea. This is fourth turning stuff right here.

D (8:32)

Could I just start? You know, look at it. Every single time people have tried to even audit the Fed, they can't get political support to do it. If Fed becomes a lightning rod issue, then they still won't be able to. But the truth is, the Fed is the most unaccountable power in the United States, and it's not even close. And so while I personally tend to feel that I think Powell is a good person, in a sense, I think that he's done, under the circumstances, a reasonable job. I think that the cutting of rates in the July before the last election was a political hack job. And at that point, his credibility, in my eyes, went kaboom. And by the way, his credibility went kaboom in a lot of people's eyes, which is, I think, where this is coming from. You might remember on one of these shows, I actually predicted some version of this, that Trump would use that in order to try to push him out. I didn't say it would succeed. And in fact, it's pretty obvious that Mike is right. It's going to backfire. But the real essence of the problem is, and I don't think this will happen, but it should, is will this entire situation create an actual debate, an actual public discourse about why the hell have we made this assumption that an unaccountable group of bureaucrats that are, you know, 900 PhDs, basically twiddling their noses and throwing darts at a dartboard? So much for their evidence stuff. And I'm going to tee you up, James, because I know what you think on this subject is, is. Are the people who should be the most powerful people in the American economy. Because to be. To be blunt, it is insane. It makes no sense. It's never made sense. It should be if, if you want to have AVID as an, as an element of your economic policy, okay, that's fine. But you know, that kind of dresses up fiat by, by doing what they're doing. Having the, quote, independent Fed is putting lipstick on a pig. The fiat system is still fucked. We still have this notion, I'm sorry for the F bomb, but we still have this notion that it's okay that we can print money to infinity and have the world's reserve currency and all the other stuff that we talk about. And here we have the Fed, who's been behind the curve on every single major decision they've made for the last, what, 30 years. And with all of that, it's hard not to look at Powell and say, this is a man of integrity standing up to a bully. And so from a rhetorical point of view, he will win in the sense that the Senate in particular is going to be more sympathetic to him. In an actual sense. If you look at the data, there's no reason to think that the amount of money that we're spending on the Federal Reserve, the amount of control being given to the banking system makes any objective sense. People will say it does because they believe that the fiat system makes sense and we should have this. But the truth is, it's all about credibility.

E (11:30)

So let's, let's, let's, let's pull on that string. Let's go all the way back to first principles. I love to do that. First of all, I do believe that Powell believes what he's doing, the work he's doing, the work that the, that the other Fed presidents are doing is meaningful and honest. I think he believes that. I also think that he believes fully in this system that we're in. Now. Here's the first principle. Why do we even have the Fed? What are they doing and what's their, what is their real function? Well, their real function is to establish and, and continue to enhance and embolden the world's confidence in the US Dollar. Why are they doing that? They're doing that because the United States is running massive deficits and they have to continue to float more and more debt, and they need a market for that. So the, the, it goes like this. Congress sets the budget. They clearly do not have a way to balance it. It's between fraud and just wasteless spending. Like wasteful and, and sent senseless spending. They're not going to balance the budget. We've gone through this ad nauseam. That's number one. Number, the treasury is charged with facilitating that spending so the treasury has to float enough debt in order to continue this charade. And then the Fed is there as the backstop to install confidence in U.S. treasuries and U.S. dollars and to control the flow of the money in the. In a way that they can continue to print it without the entire world revolting and saying, you're printing so much money, it's worth less and less and less every single year. I don't want to hold these bonds anymore. But we're already seeing cracks in the system with central banks around the world saying we don't want to hold US Bonds for various reasons. One of those reasons that we've talked again, again about so much is that they don't trust that the US Won't, they won't freeze their assets, kick them off swift. And if, if they don't do exactly what the United States wants them to do. That was Biden's mis. Massive misstep. And then the second one is we don't trust that there's not going to be massive inflation and massive money printing in the future. And so we're getting out of the U. S Treasuries and buying gold instead. And that was, that was Powell's misstep. He printed $5 trillion in 2020. I mean, that, that is a, that was a massive misstep. And he's been trying to recover from that mistake ever since. And so it's not an easy recovery. I think he has done pretty well. Like, like Dave said after that mistake, you know, I mean, it was a big one. And so here we are trying. The Fed is trying to instill confidence and hold that confidence in US Dollar that they feel is already breaking. You can see the charts, and I don't have one in front of me, but you can see the charts of central banks holding Treasuries versus central banks holding gold. And it. Exactly. And it is inverted. So that is the problem. And we're. And where he's going to be fighting that until his last day here in, I believe it's April. And that's. And that's where he's gonna be fighting. But this is all political theater. This is all, this is, this is the, this is for the entire world to see that the Fed is pushing back. They're pushing back on political pressure. They are independent. They're making decisions that are going to be the best for the US Dollar and the US Economy. And it doesn't matter what the President say. And it's, it's full theater. You've got Trump from one side, you know, hitting Powell saying we're gonna, we're threatening basically with criminal charges on lying to Congress about the renovation of this multi billion dollar renovation of federal buildings. Then you've got the other side of Powell hitting back saying you just don't like where, where we've been standing with the interest rates and we're not going to be bullied into changing our policy just because of the whims of this administration. And so it's full theater. I mean we're surrounded by theater every single day, but this is like front and center main stage theater. I'm sorry, Scott, what was that?

A (15:53)

Full theater. But it, I can't even imagine what it took for Powell to sit down and decide to actually make this statement and say that the DOJ is being weaponized against him because of his independent decisions on rate policy. I mean this is like, this is the end of the line. You can't put that back in the horse.

D (16:16)

Wow.

E (16:17)

Yeah, I mean we, it's gotten to this point. That's how broken down communication is in, in our politics. And that's not, I mean this is, this is just one spot of, of where the, where one side can't talk to the other.

A (16:32)

And Powell be a sign for Powell. That's what makes this even crazier. It's not like he's going after Joe Biden in an election.

E (16:40)

Right, exactly. And that's why, well, I mean, Trump has clearly put him on the other side. I mean he patted him on, on the head basically when he was standing in, in the construction area of, of that federal building and you know, admonishing him for overspending. And so that was clearly humiliating, you know, for, for Powell much smaller guy standing there in a suit and a hard hat looking very uncomfortable. And Powell basically took, takes him by the small of the back like you would, you know, a lady to go to the next room. And it's like it was, wow, like that was truly humiliating. I mean he's a master at humiliating people and so that, that's where we are and you know, but go back to first principles. This is all theater and it's all for the benefit of the world to think, oh don't worry, the Fed's independent. But let's be clear, the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points and they cut them twice basically before the, before the last election. And then they just held steady from there on for another year. I mean you saw what the 10 year bond did when they did that because it was the wrong move. But they did it to a net to basically get ahead of the election and say, hey, we have conquered inflation. Everything's great. The economy is, is holding steady and we feel it's, it's the right time to lower rates here because we have tackled inflation. Of course, inflation just has been persistent ever since because of the massive misstep that they made long before that, years before that and printing $5 trillion. That's my take on it.

A (18:20)

Mike, you get your shot here at what's going on between Powell and Trump.

B (18:25)

Well, I think let's reiterate first what James is saying. It's absolutely positive. It's Trump theater. But what's happening I think now is what markets are figuring out and know from the very beginning, certainly precious metals. Again, this human being has been so emboldened. His personality is he will not stop until something breaks. Just the things he's so emboldened about doing. We see the aggressiveness with what just happened in Venezuela and pushing back on the Fed and let's think about some generations from the future laws will change to prevent these things because some of these things he's pushing back on, laws are put in because it's the right thing to do. You have to have an independent Fed and pushing back on Dave a little bit. I just remember reading the Courage to Act by Ben Bernanke in 2009 after the crisis I was so grateful the Fed did the, the right thing then there then and James point out they did do the wrong thing during COVID Now we all could potentially could have died. They kept, they should have kept pumping. They should have raised rates in 2021 a year before for one key reason, the stock market new high. It told them inflation is coming back, everything's fine. And I think from the future we're going to look back and say yeah, the Fed's going to watch the stock market a lot more because it matters. They've hinted at it, but to me it's now matters all that matters. We can talk and complain all we want, but what does it mean for markets is what matters. That's why I want to go with this. And to me the bottom line, a big picture for me and everything with obviously my commodity background is we've never had a rally like we're having in the metals, most notably gold with such a high velocity, with stock market volatility staying low. Now obviously it's been a broken record forever, but that's another key thing. We all completely assume, we assume Trump's going to be emboldened until something breaks that we all can get that we can see it. Market's showing that and I just don't think anything matters until we have a normal 10% correction in the stock market then we can reasset. So I look at it as a trading opportunity. This is a year where volatility stock market almost guaranteed to go up. And so you look at as a trader account come in flat sitting on off risk off assets like Treasuries and look for opportunities. To me we've already had an opportunity to sell Bitcoin at 40, 94,000. That to me is a worthy short. We've had an opportunity to sell copper above 6. That to me is a worthy short. Where they go, I don't know where you stop. Very simple. A hundred thousand bitcoin copper stain above 6,000. How you manage it now that's the hard part. I'll let the traders do that. I'm just a sayer. And then let's look at the rest of the markets. We're so overdue for 120 day volatility and S&P 500 just to pop in there. 17%. It's historical average and it's running closer to 11% or so. To me that's now it's just finding a reason to do that.

D (20:50)

And sober is up.

E (20:51)

Silver is up almost it's four, four four and a half dollars pre marketer.

B (20:56)

Four it's up 6% and exactly the exact same thing in one. In 2011 I was longer than I wasn't old enough to be long at 1979 or 1973. But it's got good fundamental reasons. My point is some of us have been invested in silver for decades and talked about these fundamental reasons. I remember when silver was just silver solar than 10% of total demand. Now it's pumping in closer to 2030 or 25%. That is just things that took but they take forever to kick in. And the point I have to remind you is what you're seeing and hearing from people are bullish silver. Now things have been pointed in case for years and they're just kicking in. The key thing to remember as a trader, as an investor, when prices go parabolic for fundamental reasons, it shifts the balance and that's what's going to happen. It's just a question of when for where. So I'm not going to recommend any type of short and silver or gold yet now obviously saying I just did in copper, I just did it in bitcoin because I think I have the Edge. I still think silver can get to 100 bucks this year. I still think gold can get to 5,000. But from a long term investment standpoint, buying and holding these metals at this level has proven wrong thing to do because of the elasticity. Don't ever forget the elasticity of price. People can bring silver supply from their underwear drawers and they will in history, they always have. So looking forward to mark what this means for markets. My base case akin to last year was overweight gold and overweight treasuries. Now kind of not on that gold camp anymore, just overweight treasuries. And right now I consider myself short cryptos and short copper.

D (22:27)

Okay, can I trade it?

B (22:28)

But that's the way I look at it.

D (22:29)

I think we should break this into two pieces. Let's talk about gold and silver before we talk about Bitcoin. The first thing to keep in mind is this theater that we're talking about in the US is there's a geopolitical aspect to gold and silver and you can't ignore it. If you do ignore it, then you got a problem because we've created a ton of more dollars, we've created a ton more fiat currency in the rest of the world. And the question is there's a bifurcated sort of buying in both. There is central bank buying in the case of gold and there is industrial buying in the case of silver in the central bank case. The only sellers at scale enough for that is massive in the market. So it is very hard to accumulate. It has a monetary premium. But there are speculators that are on the other side of this. And so you look at the most obvious chart, which we've been talking about for weeks, months even, which is foreign governments replacing Treasuries as they're backing with gold. And that's just an actual. That's a freight train. And there is no reason to believe that that's going to change. Like none, zero. Certainly not for the next three years that Trump is president. I mean, he's doing everything he can to give people reason not to buy U.S. treasuries outside of the United States in terms of foreign governments and central banks. Not to mention the fact that the Trump name is associated with Bitcoin, which I think is one of the reasons why bitcoin isn't a beneficiary of all of this. And as a result, that's a big thing. So that's gold. Now silver is something slightly different. There are two factors at play here. On the buying side, there is as you say the industrial deficit, which has been structurally in massive deficit for five years and that deficit is increasing. There are trends that are different and the marginal change of having even more shorts, more of a shortfall where the only thing they can do is wait for it to get out of an underwear drawer. But smelting capacity is running full out is a problem. So we have more new battery technology and batteries are becoming more and more important.

E (24:42)

Solid state for cars.

D (24:44)

Yeah, solid state for cars. More solar, etc. There's more electronification going on in the global economy than at any point in history. And silver is the world's best conductive metal. So that demand is increasing, not decreasing. At the same time, the revival of the notion of silver as money or value is very big outside the United States and starting to get big in the United States. If you pull up, if you go to appmex.com which is the largest dealer of silver coins I just did, right now, I'm staring at it. Do you want to buy an American Eagle silver coin? Now we think that the price is $84, they're saying as low as $98.

A (25:30)

If you actually want to get your hands on physical gold, you're paying over a hundred bucks.

D (25:33)

Physical silver.

A (25:35)

Excuse me.

D (25:36)

Yeah, you can, you're paying a tremendous premium and the discount upon which you can sell it at is obviously shrinking. Now I, I, we talked about this a couple weeks ago and I said after the CME raise their margin requirements that you guys all have it wrong, that it's not going to prick the bubble, that in fact it's going to make market makers have a much more difficult time hedging what is the second source of demand in gold and silver. And that is speculation through the contract for differences market. So I'm going to take my victory lap on this one and say this is exactly what I expected to happen and we're not even close to done yet. And I think that people need to understand that speculators are flying into this stuff and inevitably they're going to get hurt if you, whenever you start buying at a 10 or 15% premium, at some point that premium is going to vanish and you're going to lose two ways. You're going to lose because you top ticked it and because the premium is going to vanish. But that time isn't now, right? It's still relatively early in the process. And it's important to understand that. And I've said this a million times, but just don't ignore the fact that culturally, for thousands of Years the Chinese people have believed silver is money. And yes, China as a government got hurt by adopting this policy in the past. But to think that that's going to change. It's not. And it's one of those things.

B (26:59)

Oh, eventually no price. You're missing one key thing of there's a supply demand model and has one key metric that puts it all together price. You're missing one key thing Dave. When you talk about these past things that are known, knowns that have been in the markets for decades and definitely the last couple years those have been long bullish metals is once the price shifts, this fundamentals shift. That's my point and just there's time to be overweight long and hold these things like those silver coins you said I've been giving those out for a year now. Finally they're, they're jumping. I looked like an idiot for I'm giving out for decades. Finally they're jumping. Now I'm just pointing out be careful with that fundamental narrative. It will shift. Just the reason why cryptos are going down, the right reasons energy is going down, why the reasons grains are going down because the price went up too.

E (27:45)

Much much to, to, to put them actually on that point. I agree with you in, in a sense here Mike, in that look, it's the same thing happened with Bitcoin. Yet OGs that were waiting for 100000 to sell and yet a million coins came out or more than a million came out in 2025 because of it. And that's why it's, it's, you know, been grinding down to 90000 here. But Dave is right. There's a different fundamental demand and it's not like this is the problem. And yeah, you can have people come in with their, with the silver from their sock drawers because they have all these coins that were given to them that were, that were worth 15 or $20 just a couple years ago and now they're worth $80. And maybe they'll, they'll take them down to you know, the, the exchange and, and sell them. But to ramp up the mining is not, it's not a simple process. This takes time. They can't just turn on, you know, more, more mining to meet the demand from all of the, from all. And you know this Mike. So it does take time. So the question is, is there enough, are there enough issues with people with the markets and, and economically and politically for people to keep moving into gold and silver as a flight to safety on top of all of the demand for solar and now solid state batteries for evs. Like where does that, where does that even out? And long, long, long, long, long term, what do you want to be holding? Again, these are trades. And I do appreciate the way that you lay this out for people to understand where we are in the cycle to best protect yourself in this moment in the cycle. But this is more of a trade that you're talking about than a long term hold.

A (29:36)

Yeah, I mean Dave, I think Dave's very good to lay out the fundamentals, but I think Mike makes one of my favorite points of all time that I make about markets all the time. Those were the same fundamentals when silver was 25 bucks.

B (29:48)

That's right. Last year was 28.

A (29:51)

Silver's not 460 or wherever at all. Time high. Today because the fundamentals changed, we start talking about them as a case for coping our way up to the top. But it's the same with bitcoin and crypto. No, you know, all the NFTs and DeFi and all the things that we saw bubbles in, we would see the bullishness narratives that were no different than when price was down all of a sudden coming out. And by the way, it works the same way on the way down as well. I would offer a slightly different take. I think that the speculation side is the bigger chunk than the fundamental side and certainly with gold. And I think silver is just catching a bid because of gold. So I think silver is just riding the coattails like Ethereum would have with bitcoin in the past. But I think that people don't want the $A, but B, they're starting to see things like this more often. Like Donald J. Trump posting himself as the president of Venezuela. I don't know if you guys saw that, but if anyone was.

D (30:45)

Can we just go back to one thing? You know, look, I, I want to be very, very, you know, laser sharp on this. My long term view of silver relative to gold is that silver will outperform and we will end up in the 30s as a ratio. I said that last week. I will continue to say that that's where we were in the 70s. There's never been an economic reason for silver, gold, silver which is 20 to 1 in the earth's crust, actually 19 same above ground, etc. So all those, the sock drawers, all the other crap, you know, the same thing is true with gold jewelry. You know, I will tell you, I believe the silver will be in the 30s versus gold and it could actually easily correct back to the multi thousand year mean, you know we like to.

A (31:31)

Go back 10, we call that alt season.

D (31:34)

Well I just believe that there is no reason that gold should have a premium over silver. At some point 100 years from now it won't happen because I don't think gold will be the monetary standard. I think it will be a monetary standard. I think bitcoin will have its place in the monetary standard. I think that is my long term view now relative to inflation, relative to dollars created because we're talking about dollars of the denominator. Do I think that we're going to be much lower than this when all of this stuff is done? Probably not. Will we see a much larger rally than people think and then a much bigger bust than people like who follow what I'm saying thinks. I know what just happened with the looks like I went up and down. Can you guys still hear me? Yeah. Yeah. And Mike will at some point be correct. I don't know at what price the blow off top in silver will reach before we see a 30 to 40% correction. But that is baked in the cake for all the reasons Mike said. So I want to be. It's, it's important because people listen to this and they go oh great, I'm going to buy silver on leverage. I'm going to go to their contract for differences. Broker 50x lever play it out.

A (32:41)

As long as you're going to get squeezed.

D (32:43)

If you do that and it goes to 125 you might be in great shape. But if you keep levering up which most idiots will do then when it goes from 125 back down to 90 they're all wiped out. And so there is going to be enormous volatility and that is what you're seeing. And at this exact same time that this is happening, Bitcoin's 30 day projected volatility turned down again and it backed down to even the implied volatility is down to lows of the recent basically decade and its realized volatility is way below that implies are way above. I mean Bitcoin's actual realized volatility is unbelievably low. And so ask yourself what, what is happening? Oh by the way one more fun fact for you because I think that when we're talking about all this, you know if you look at the yield curve right now it is fascinating. James probably knows where I'm going right now. The market is pricing in virtually nothing. One month to two year is 10 basis point, not even 10 basis points of cuts. One month to three years is not, is. What is it? Two basis points of cuts. Two. In three years, it's basically flat.

E (33:59)

And it, in five years, it's flat. Basically, it's four basis points.

D (34:03)

Right. And five years is flat. So basically, the market is looking at this saying, Fed Schmed, Trump's not going to be able to do what he, what he's, what he's blunderbussing about. And so understand, when you trade off of the, quote, volatility of Trump and Powell, the market's already decided that nothing is going to happen, that the Fed is not going to be a tool of this administration. Interest rates are not going to cut.

A (34:27)

When I was making before, I mean, I think we all agree that gold and silver, well, specifically gold, tend to sniff out what's happening underlying, right? I mean, gold.

E (34:37)

And a natural yield curve. You know, you can't really go out further than two years to be looking at where you expect the Fed to be going point, because then you're, you're demanding premium beyond that.

A (34:49)

That's right, Dave, Let me finish. You can take this political, your, your political view and throw it out the window. I don't, I don't care, because there's facts. And I think when people see an unstable United States, they tend to want to buy things like gold. Right? And you have obviously, like I just showed you for, for anyone who is arguing with me that, you know, it's for the people of Venezuela. And I'm like, the guy's literally posting pictures of himself as the president of Venezuela and then let's hear what he had to say about Greenland. Okay. Like, if you're a foreign government. Wait, I think I'm going to play the video. If you're a foreign government yet, I might talk about that.

B (35:25)

But right now, we are going to.

A (35:27)

Do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not. Because if we don't do it, Russia.

B (35:33)

Or China will take over Greenland, and.

A (35:35)

We'Re not going to have Russia or.

B (35:37)

China as a neighbor.

D (35:38)

Okay. I would, I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way.

A (35:46)

But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way. I'm sorry, like, there, there's.

D (35:59)

You're describing. We're agreeing, Scott. Yeah, we're absolutely agreeing. What I'm trying to tell you is the market is right now pricing in the following scenario. The market is pricing in. Republicans lose in the midterms, meaning that what happens in the next year, which will be increasingly less and less of real market you know, legislation or changes, markets like gridlock. And the expectation is you're going to get two years of impeachment in the House and gridlock. And the administration, basically, whatever they're going to do is going to be done through executive action, executive action only. They're going to get nothing done. Markets tend to like that. And that tends to be, we may personally not like that for a lot of different reasons, but markets tend to like it. And that is the odds on favorite. The odds on favorite is that Trump's not going to be able to get his Fed to be able to do what he wants them to do, because that's what they're pricing in. And it's just important to understand that because when you start, there are people out there this morning or last over the weekend saying, oh my God, markets are going to do this, markets are good, they're going to go crazy one way or the other. And yet we're seeing another muted opening.

E (37:04)

Why would be really interesting to have to see happen here, Dave, is if, if Trump floats a million dollars per, Per. Per citizen of Greenland, I think you're throwing them out by their vote to, to secede and, and be. And fold into the United States, secede from Denmark and fall into the United States and then we get a bidding war. That would be, that would be interesting. But look, I mean, he, he does say these things that are quite inflammatory, but you can't discount them because he, then he goes through with some of that in Venezuela.

A (37:44)

So I don't think people are discounting it so dramatically anymore. But you can't have a conversation about the price of gold without having a conversation about what foreign governments are looking at when they see Trump's statement.

B (37:56)

Can I pivot? And I think that's the key thing. Let's remember the macro big picture here. We have the second largest economy on the planet, decisively enabling a war in its best customers. Background, Mr. Z. And unlimited friendship. I just remember the Molotov rippentoff Agreement from 1939, I think, and that's accelerating, but they're losing dramatically. And to expand to have the world's largest economy provides the security for all of Europe to look for greater security. Environment makes sense. Now, obviously we're using Trump's methods, but the bottom line is this aggressing group, it's losing too. They lost Syria, they've lost Gaza, they lost Venezuela, and now they're potentially losing on a global trade war. And the thing about Trump is his methods, love them or hate him, but I Think he's pointing out what's happening. The world's getting. There is a third world war going on. That's part of the reason gold and silver are rallying. US Stock market hasn't figured out yet. I don't think US bond markets figured it out yet, but maybe Trump has. Let's remember that macro that's happening. It's not getting better yet. Now, if we had some kind of major detente right away, a ceasefire in Ukraine, sure, that would matter. But every day that just gets worse. At some point I keep waking up and hear about fallout, nuclear fallout, just that's how bad things are getting and. But I want you know. Exactly. But that's just the norm. That's a cycle that's happening globally and it's all because of two human beings, unlimited friendship. Now if that cracks, I don't know. But that to me is the macro here. But then prices adjust, they look forward. And that was the key thing I was pointing. I feel the conversations we're having right now very similar we had in cryptos last year. Yes, McGlone was wrong for months and then finally that kicked in. That price, that sense in the sentiment I've always seen from that selling when they're yelling kicked in. Now I was buying when they're crying for 20, 21, 22 and 23 in gold, saying it's going to go above 2,000. So I was definitely wrong for a long time, but now it's gone. That gone shift. I have to look at a prudent money management standpoint when everybody's yelling, you got to be careful. And that's where we are now. That's why I stay away from markets and look for opportunities. Right now I just signed two great ones so far and it's like told you, shorts in bitcoin, short in cryptos. Any one of them, you pick which one you want. Maybe a broad market and shorts and copper and the bottom line is the first, what's the signal to be wrong and that, okay, they close above your levels of a couple days or you get just final little pickup and say the Vix goes to 20. We know it's going to get there at some point. Say the 120 day moving average gets at 17. It's just imagine the win and then you move on the next trade. But right now it's a good time to be away and not just be overweight, long things. Except, well, I'll be. Things have been going up. So to me the macro is heating up every day and the Key thing that's missing is stock market volatility is way too low for this environment.

D (40:48)

Okay, so I, I'm gonna. You, you basically contradicted yourself. So I'm trying to figure out why. Because if you said short silver or start legging into shorts tops.

B (40:59)

I said copper. Did I say something? Copper. Copper and bitcoin.

D (41:02)

I said if you said short silver, if you're lagging into stops at six bucks, I, I get it. I'm not going to argue about copper. I do think you're wrong there. Only because inflation adjusted copper at this price is, I mean, it's at the high end of its range, but nothing crazy. And it is such an incredibly strong predictor. King Copper, as you called it, of real economic growth. Our GDP is going to come in much higher than people think we are deregulating. And we'll, we'll see. Well, we'll see, we'll see. I, I don't, I'm not bullish copper. I'm kind of neutral there. I think maybe slightly on the short side because I think you're right, it's a little overheated, but it's not a big deal. Silver is definitely overheated. I think it will get more overheated as time goes on. Gold, same thing. And, and the markets will have a crescendo. There will be a blow off top. I don't think that these moves are the blow off top yet, but we're closer, I think we're closer to a blow off top than we're closer to, to the other side. But at the same time, with all of that said, when you look at bitcoin, and since this is macro Monday, we are, we are talking about crypto, we are talking about bitcoin. Bitcoin is exactly the opposite of that. It is literally stuck in amber. It is at a price with its lowest volatility in, in a decade. And what you're seeing is smart money accumulating and people selling out and traders getting rinsed. You're seeing lot, you know, rinse, repeat traders lever up when they think it's going to break out, it doesn't, they get crushed. And you see it time after time to the point where we're seeing interest on YouTube, we're seeing searches, we're seeing every single sentiment indicator is bottoming. Is it bottomed? Probably not, because you never anticipate the bottom.

A (42:50)

But you can see, by the way, YouTube views on crypto content are at the lowest since January 2021 and people are fighting over the x Twitter algorithm saying they're not algorithm saying they're not seeing X content. That's another data point to everything.

B (43:04)

It is but admitted to Scott wasn't.

E (43:08)

Admitted that it was that that they.

A (43:10)

Were but listen but people were up in arms about that. I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense to not have an algorithm push.

E (43:17)

Absolutely. Mike could absolutely be. I, I 100 agree with Mike that if we have a drawdown in the market, I've been telling my investors this, we have a 2030 drawdown in the market. Bitcoin is going with it. It is not going to sit here at $90,000 like everybody needs to understand it is going to be correlate to one along with gold and silver. Unless it's for some un, you know, foreseeable reason and Mike is right about some sort of escalation of nuclear threats then that that all bets are off and maybe gold goes to you know, 10,000. So who knows. But that that is a risk for sure. But I agree with you, all things being equal here, Dave, the sentiment is, is abysmal.

D (44:05)

But now the question.

B (44:09)

Let's just let me take one thing. When you say smart money Dave, and you're being selectives, I would have to propose to you the smart money has been getting short and heverage the leverage money bitcoin for months now. And they're making money and they're doing it cost effectively and they're doing a risk adjusted doing well. So smart money, if you're saying buying bitcoin has been wrong for a little while, the people who bought bitcoin a long time ago, like everybody in this call did very well. A lot of them are getting out. Let's be careful with using those views. The bottom line is prove it. Show the strength. That's why I say very simply, I look at it as an X trader. All right. You gave me the first week of the year, gave me a chance to sell at 94, thank you very much. Stop my out at 100, stay above there for a couple days, boom. Prove it. Otherwise look at the markets telling you we have a bear flag volatility very low. That means that typically breaks down. We've already had the first head fake. It gave you a chance to sell. That's technical. Technical. But the thing is bitcoin is all technical because there's no basis. Now I trade copper futures. There's a basis I fundamentals.

A (45:03)

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

E (45:04)

What do you mean?

B (45:05)

I tell you off on that.

A (45:09)

How did you get.

B (45:10)

There's no Beat because when you trade, I'm come a futures background, you always trade basis. There's a basis for treasuries, for corn, for copper, for all commodities. It's the underlying commodity. You trade that basis. Now that's what's going to happen in tokenization. There's going to be a basis for all those tokens, tokens, jewelry. The basis for gold futures is gold. The gold contract, the physical gold. The basis for bitcoin is there isn't one. That's why the only basis for the whole crypto space are crypto dollars. And that's my point is as we tokenize, as the market sees that on.

E (45:44)

The same chain, we won't get into that debate.

D (45:46)

Okay, let's just, let's just go with this. All you have to know is that we're, we're still in the same period of time where relative to its own network, Bitcoin is the cheapest it's ever been. That's the basis that I care about. But yes, if you have the Peter Schiff view that nothing virtual has any inherent value, then fine. You know, you can't convince somebody who believes that. So let's just move that aside. Let's understand something. When we're talking about stock markets, your own analyst thinks that 2026 will be a good year for the market because corporate earnings will go higher. I tend to agree with them.

B (46:22)

Consensus.

D (46:22)

If you don't see a massive correction, if in fact the trend toward corporate profits being at an all time high relative to GDP continues, then there's no reason to believe that. So let's unpack this. James, I agree with you. If we get a massive correction in the stock market and look, we could easily get a tantrum because this thing Trump did, it happened a year ago, I mean hell, in April, what happened? The stock market went kabloom, Bitcoin dropped 30%. What happened was Trump got moderated, the stock market went back up. We've been at all time highs and bitcoin at first recovered and then stuck in its current range. So there's a lot that's going on here. But you do have to game theory out what happens if the stock market doesn't break, what happens if financialization doesn't end? What happens in that scenario? And that's the scenario that I'm talking about, which is we will go, markets can stay like this. I remember it wasn't even all that long ago. It was not as tighter ranges we're in now that we've been in for the last Two months. But we saw eight months of this before. One possible scenario is the four year cycle. Bros are half right that we are in crypto winter. And crypto winter in this case is cre is really crypto apathy. And what happens in apathy, the people who are making long term allocations are just quietly stacking and the people who are selling are quietly getting out in desperation. And eventually that desperation ends. And when it ends, the number goes up and then you get a very, then you get a chain.

E (47:50)

There's an argument to be made that the, that there's a whole generation of, of of investors, traders who were interested in crypto just, you know, 12 to 18 months ago are not interested in it now because they can make bets literally from second to second. In poly market, you could be betting on Green Bay or on the, on, you know, the Bears the last moment and you could have made massive money if you were betting on the Bears in the last two minutes of the game. You can't do that in Vegas. You can do it on your phone now. And that people are out of the. If you want to be on the risk curve, there's, there is availability for you to be on the risk curve everywhere now. It's not just in the crypto market anymore. And so that is what that is.

D (48:36)

It's also in the golden silver that the point that I keep making is outside the U.S. it's also true in the silver market and a lot. And, and so you, you're seeing alt season isn't all alt coins. It's, it's precious metals.

E (48:52)

Yeah, I want to make it, I want to make it clear that I'm talking about alt season, not about bitcoin and not about just gold. You know, like there's a, there's a difference.

D (49:00)

But, but, but the point that I was trying to make is bitcoin is boring. Bitcoin right now is boring. It's in one of those cyclical downtrends which, you know, the, the cycle. Bros will talk about it, but what we're seeing is it's not dropping. It's basically kind of stuck. And that will change. And Mike could be right. We could easily see a head fake lower before it goes higher. We could easily see more head fakes there. Every one of the technical analysts I followed basically said this is bitcoin's gonna hit a hundred thousand sell it then. In fact, it only got to 94. And so, you know, who the hell knows? But you know, 90. Think of what 94 is. You're literally talking about 3 or 4%, 5%. You're not talking about a 15 to 20 rally anymore. The scale, the order of magnitude of, of the movement is so much lower. And that tells you, saying now look.

E (49:55)

Here'S the, here's the mind. Here's like this is insane. The bitcoin for its, the amount of negativity we've had in this space for the last three, four, five months. The, this asset is still the eighth.

A (50:11)

Largest in the world and it's down like 24.

E (50:14)

And it's down like. Yeah, it's, it's been down over 30. It is, is still the 8th largest asset in the world. So you know. Right. I mean you have to, that, that, that is telling you something. It's, it's, it's larger than Facebook. It's larger than Saudi Aramco and Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway. Like this, it is going away.

D (50:37)

Let me make one more point. Which will, which will. This will definitely get people's hackles up, but I don't care.

A (50:44)

Yeah, let's do it.

D (50:45)

What if, what if the fact that bitcoin was so strongly associated with the, with the, the, the letters T R U M P is why it's stuck where it is?

B (50:56)

Yeah.

E (50:57)

Because I actually, it's been, it's been co opted by the, this administration.

D (51:01)

There's no, however, I, I'd rather.

E (51:04)

No, I mean the sentiment, you can feel the sentiment, the negative sentiment still there from the Democrats. You can still feel that. And it was strong before the election. So.

D (51:17)

Right. So what happens in a world where, where, you know, which we know three years now, the one thing we do know, regardless of all the, the, the four chan people is there will not, you know, Trump will not be president in four years. We have a pretty good idea that after a year we're going to end up where he is, is effectively made politically impotent. But that of course makes him more dangerous on the executive side. We know that that is the most likely scenario. Now do I want that to be the case? No, I don't. But I'm just calling balls and strikes here. So you know, that is where, what the most likely scenario is. Now in that scenario, let's talk geopolitics. If you're outside the United States and you're one of the countries that are, that are buying gold and silver, at what point is there a rotation? At what point do they say, okay, Trump's been defanged already. I'm going to make a crazy contrarian take which is if it becomes Obvious that Trump is not going to have as much power. That at that point is when the next level and the next, next big rally in bitcoin could take place. Now look, it will, that will in turn make Eric and Donald Jr. Very, very wealthy because we know that that's where their bets are. But the truth is that whether it's bitcoin as a bet or whether it's crypto rails as a bet, that's the winning trade. It is absolutely true. Now it may be that for years it gets, you know, delayed because we can't get a clarity act done because the Democrats are insisting on ethics. By the way, just to be clear, I agree with the ethics stuff they want to put in. There's no reason, there's no way that a political, a standing politician could issue an equity against their own name. So why the hell should they be allowed to issue a meme coin against their own name? I mean, I agree with that. I just want. Because a lot of people think that I'm a stomping Republican. I'm much more closer to an unaffiliated voter, even though I am, quote, a Republican. But there are certain positions that are just untenable. I mean, I, I don't know a human being in the crypto space who thinks that celeb, that a politician should be allowed to create a meme of themselves and profit from it while they're in office. I don't know anyone, you know, and so I, and well, I mean this.

E (53:26)

Is where we are. You also have, you also have a politician who was making on average about 100 to 20. $120,000,000 a year on, on her salary. And she's worth over $400 million because of her stock trading.

D (53:38)

Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, look there. The amount of really good options if.

E (53:43)

We talk really good ethics.

D (53:47)

Look, Elon has put his finger on the pulse of it. The reason that Tesla cars are getting keyed and, and all the other stuff is because he was getting close and he was abandoned by the Republicans who make as probably not quite as much, but the whole NGO complex is massive. The fact that they just caught bags of cash at the airport in Minnesota trying to smuggle those bags of cash out to the Middle east or Somalia should tell you something. The entire non governmental organization funding is the biggest scandal in our lifetime. And unfortunately both parties are involved, which is why Elon was not allowed to do anything about it. Now maybe all this shit will resolve. We haven't talked about any of that. That. But when it comes To Bitcoin, right now Bitcoin is painted as political. Eventually that will fade and eventually it will be what it really is, which is apolitical. That's the point.

E (54:36)

It'll also stop being associated with just a mere risk on asset.

D (54:41)

That's right. But right now it is a risk on asset with no risk. Its volatility is the lowest of all of them. It's crazy, but bitcoin's volatility compared to all the Mag 7, I think it's below all of them. Maybe there's one that isn't there, but it's literally lower. And so when Mike and I used to talk about beta and this and that, because beta is one or less than one to the mag 7 right.

A (55:03)

Now also we have a rotation happening just quickly from the Mag 7 into small caps anyways, which should be a risk on sentiment in general. I mean this is the iwm, the Russell making a new all time high, breaking out of a range forever. So if you're bearish on the stock market and you think that you see tech stocks going down as a bad thing, that would only be the case if you saw money leaving, but it's finding a new home and that's in Locust. So actually you would imagine that right now we're in an extreme risk on environment based on this.

D (55:31)

Yeah. And so my overall point is the sentiment and the concept that Mike is saying selling when you're yelling, when they're yelling, buying when they're crying is those are words to live by. And if you're a trader, and yes, this is a great trading market for bitcoin if you're a short volume trader and it is a great trading volume for silver if you're a long volume trader. And what do I mean by that? There are two types of trading strategies on the quantitative and trading side. People who sell volatility who basically are looking for a range and capture the long and short. I used to call this channelingstocks.com back in the Internet bubble there was this service that was advertising on CNBC that says we're going to tell you where the bottom of the range is in the top of the range. And you're going to sell it, you're going to sell it and you make money and the car. And those strategies by the way, are enormously profitable over 90% of the time. The problem with those strategies are when they're wrong, they're wrong by a factor of 20. You get absolutely buried. And so what Mike is telling you and he's right. Just understand, Mike is totally right, is if you set your stops right and you're disciplined, those strategies make money. That's a short, short volatility strategy. When I say that long ball strategies, you're buying expecting the market to go either parabolic up or crash. And you're going to capture that. Those strategies lose money, literally lose money 90% of the time. But when they make money, it's More like a VC, you make 20x your money or more. That is the difference. Now I'm over generalizing it. Obviously there's hybrids and there's lots of option strategies and market makers could do it. But you know, I will always remember having these conversations and that's something to keep in mind. So yes, these are great trading markets and, and we, we have something today that we almost never have. Normally one of the two makes money and the other doesn't. For all assets. Today we have assets that, that are comfortably making money for one and comfortably making money for the other. Different assets. So it's a very interesting trading market and that's something that people need to understand. So on a macro show, understand if you believe that something macro is going to break, well, you have ways to do it. If you think that the macro is going to stay stuck in amber, there are ways to trade it and that's the way. I know it was a long soliloquy, but I think that's important for people to understand because we always get caught in these, these simple up down conversations. It's not that simple. That makes sense, Scott. I mean you talk about this all the time.

A (58:01)

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. I know we're like right up against time. I did want to at some point talk about maybe we'll get into it next week, but Trump saying cap, you know, interest rates on credit cards at 10%, obviously that was to the title here. Rattling markets, banking stocks and credit cards.

E (58:18)

Now the banks are all reporting this week, so it's be interesting if they have any comment about it.

D (58:23)

Yeah.

A (58:23)

And then of course saying I want to ban institutional investors in housing. And I was looking forward to a good debate on whether that would be a good or a bad thing. But I think we gotta touch on them another time.

D (58:35)

Could I just say one point, please? In the history of, of man, in economic history, in peacetime, there has never once been a successful implementation of price controls. Never once expecting, you know, it's like what's the definition of insanity?

B (58:53)

Doing the same thing, expecting a different result.

D (58:58)

Never once it's Never worked. The closest you could come to are, are some of the third world countries who impose capital controls and then dollarized. And even there, there was all sorts of distortions, black markets, etc. So I mean, look, I understand the populism. I mean, you know, it's, it is amazing from the political side. Yeah, I get it.

E (59:21)

Let's just be. Well, let's, let's be honest. We, we are, we're in a fake capitalist, you know, system. It's not really fully capitalist. That's the problem. Socialists and, and you know, aspiring communists railing against capitalism, but they're not really about. Again, they're railing against nepotism and cronyism is what they're doing. And that's the reality and that's the system we live in and we talk about it all the time. The K shaped recovery, the two economies, the Cantillon Effect, all of that which I wrote about this weekend. It's, it's all wrapped into the fake capitalist system that we're in. And that's what people are railing against. And that's why ultimately I truly believe. And I think you do. And, and you know, Scott, I think Dave, you and Scott do believe this. I'm not sure where you believe this, where you stand on this anymore, Mike, but I do believe that's why bitcoin ultimately wins out. And that's because of the, the failed system that we're in. Simple as that.

A (60:29)

I think we all agree on the failed system. I think there's just disagreement as to what to buy the Alchemist.

E (60:35)

Sure.

A (60:36)

Right.

E (60:38)

We'll continue to debate that every week again in, in the, in, you know, kind of in the framework of what is going on in the world for that week. And yeah, there, there hasn't been a week and for as long as I can remember that there was. Wasn't something just astounding going on. And this week we had like four or five things that we, we couldn't even touch on all of them.

D (61:02)

So someday. What's the expression? Some weeks nothing happens.

A (61:07)

Some, Some decade. Yeah. A decade happens in a week. A week. Yeah.

D (61:11)

We are in, in a crazy geopolitical time. At the same time, market volatility is as muted as we've ever seen it.

E (61:19)

It's wild.

B (61:19)

That's probably wild. How long can that last?

D (61:22)

It can't.

E (61:25)

Market's never going down again.

B (61:27)

Never, never going down.

E (61:29)

Never going down again.

D (61:31)

An outlawed dude trades like that.

B (61:35)

Well, we're getting to the end. I just want to show you one chart that I, I featured this A couple years ago but it started breaking down. Now it's probably the most significant chart on the planet. This is just The S&P 500 measured in ounces ago that just below, below that high that was put in 1929. This is a monthly chart. Right now it's 1.151 ounces. I think it goes to 1 to 1 and questions. Maybe it goes to 5,000 then gold and 5,000 be 500. Maybe it's 6,000, maybe it's 4, I don't know. But it's breaking down and volatility is still very low. Typically this only happens in volatiles up so that to me there's so much more room. And that's why I look at things like crypto. There'd be a chance to buy bitcoin when the VIX pops to who know, 30 or so when S P 500 breaks down. But right now it's just telling you to hang on, wait for the breakout and then look to move. But buying it here I like. Yeah. Good luck.

A (62:20)

Yeah.

D (62:22)

We'll talk about in a few minutes.

A (62:25)

We have crypto down hall to continue the conversation for the day.

D (62:28)

Yeah, at least, at least in terms of the crypto side. I just think on the macro side we have the world, the markets believe that all of this is saber rattling and nothing major is to going. Going to happen. That is what's being priced in right now. And you can make your bets whether you based upon that. And honestly there are so many that we'd even mentioned the largest story geopolitically by far. Iran is Iran. And we don't know what's going to actually happen there. We don't. But all I will say is this. Iran, a Democrat, a Democratic Iran is the biggest geopolitical change of the last five decades.

B (63:03)

Yeah.

D (63:04)

It changes everything in a way that people don't truly appreciate or understand. At the same time, the biggest change that could happen in the United States is if the, the NGO and deep state stuff gets people pissed off enough and we actually get change there. That would be the, the biggest single thing that could happen in the US in terms of. If the, if the estimates of fraud that Elon is making are right. And I think that he's. I think he's not just directionally right. I think he is exactly right. That could change things dramatically. These are things that the market is betting will not change. Just think about that. Yeah. And if you want to understand how to bet on that, I mean there are lots of ways but we're not Going to get to it here. This is a macro show. But that is, that is. But those are macro, massive macro forces.

A (63:56)

I'll just take Iran. Who cares? It's ours. I mean, it would be Alaska, like whatever, man.

D (64:03)

I will not take Iran.

A (64:04)

I was kidding. I was making a joke.

D (64:06)

No, no.

A (64:07)

But it is, but it looks debilitating tds.

D (64:10)

Big deal. It's a big deal.

A (64:13)

It is. I have debilitating tds according to the comments. I, I would argue. I would argue that when someone says we're going to take a sovereign nation easy, either the easy way or the hard way, that you should look at that objectively and have an opinion on it. That's not based on your politics. But here we are.

D (64:28)

I am branded as the local Trump supporter in this program. I think that comment was irresponsible. Maybe that may be the softest way I could express it. I think it's insane to think about using military there. The only thing I can say is if we can't convince NATO to make sure to gate Greenland away from China. It's not Russia is the issue that doesn't have the, the economic ability to use the rare earths that are in Greenland. And let. Make no mistake, Greenland is about rare earth minerals. That's what it's about. It is about dominance in the electronification of the world. That's what it's about. And it is incredibly important geopolitically. It is not any different than Alaska was with regard to oil.

A (65:10)

Well, the good news for you, Dave, is now that you have joined me in the contagious form of, of debilitating tds, there's a pill that's being approved by the FDA that can cure that for both of us.

D (65:21)

Well, I have no tds. I actually, it.

E (65:24)

I.

D (65:25)

Look, I'm. I think that many of the things this administration is doing are correct. I know. You know, I don't want to go there right now. You and I should have that conversation. I think it would be our. It would be a non crypto YouTube. We could get there.

A (65:36)

That'd be great. I value my life more than that. Okay, that's all we got for you guys today here on macro Monday. Man, I can't even imagine what we'll be talking about by next week. Annexing and what proposals we'll have. But we got through most of it. Thank you, gentlemen. Dave, James, Mike, thank you. Dave and I will be on Crypto Town hall on X in about eight minutes. We will see you there. Bye, everyone. Peace. Everyone's looking for smarter ways to build their Bitcoin stack. Well, here's one most people overlook. You can earn Bitcoin every single time you spend without ever buying it to directly. That's where today's video sponsor Gemini comes in. The Gemini credit card gives you instant crypto rewards on every purchase and there's no annual fee. It's a MasterCard World Elite, so you can use it anywhere. MasterCard is accepted. Gas, groceries, travel, all of it. Now here's the breakdown. 4% back on gas rides and transit, 3% on dining, 2% on groceries and 1% on everything else. The best part?

D (66:35)

You're earning Bitcoin or one of 50.

A (66:38)

Plus other cryptocurrencies automatically deposited to your Gemini account. For me, it's been a really effortless way to build exposure to Bitcoin just by spending like normal and doing the things that I do every day. I've literally earned Bitcoin just from filling up my car with gas. And historically bitcoin Rewards held for one year have appreciated 279% on average. You're not just spending, you're building a portfolio. This is the Gemini Credit card. Sleek, straightforward and one of the easiest ways to turn everyday purchases into long term value. To get started, look at the link in the Description and get $200 in Bitcoin when you spend $3,000 in your first 90 days. Click the link in the description to apply and start earning instantly. See rates and fees in the description for more info.