Peter (3:56)

Yeah Peter, let's dive dive into all of that. Actually I was under the impression that they had closed the Straits in 1972. So that was a nice history lesson for me, Mike, because I just believe what I read on the Internet and I wasn't there. And so Peter, I think you share some of the same takes from our conversation before the show that Iran is not going to have much impact moving forward. I mean yesterday they, you know, all the bluster said they were firing another strike and I think they were able to fire one missile. So clearly that they're. They're not in a position of strength anymore.

Gina (4:27)

Yeah, I think they are fairly weak. Doesn't mean they can't try something, you know, straighter moves. Maybe they try something one I think our ability to clean it up is relatively good depending on what they do. If it's mining or something like that, we have that capacity. I also strongly believe that China is recommending to them to keep it open since China is by and large the beneficiary and the Iranian economies subsists basically on selling some weapons to Russia, which I assume they're not selling a whole lot right now as they need them for themselves and shipping oil to China and to some extent India's through the straits. So I think that's a lot more bluster when I take a look at this kind of taking a step back for us at Academy and I have the privilege to work with like 30 retired generals, admirals, CIA people. So we kind of get a lot of their collective views into this. But this is really a good step towards, you know, peace through strength and deterrence. And, you know, I think we all talk about deterrence. You can all talk about, you know, carry a big stick. You know, talk softly and carry a big stick. But. But you need to be willing to use that stick. And over the last 10 years, we've seen kind of commentaries that have gone from, at one time, our enemies or adversaries were scared of us and respected us. Then they weren't necessarily scared of us. So I think this starts re establishing not only do we have these capabilities, we're willing to use them. We've been very much about measured responses. And you can count in the last 10 to 20 years the number of times we've drawn lines in the sand that people have crossed and, and with no repercussions. So I think this won't do it on itself. But this is a starting point where our adversaries, and not just Iran, but possibly Russia, possibly China, have to say, oh, this world has changed a little bit. The US does have these amazing capabilities that have outperformed, I think, even wild expectations and is willing to use them. So I think that's what the world's looking at. I think that's why we're common markets. I think, you know, Israel has already had air superiority. We can clearly have air superiority if and when we need it. And Iran may have a lot of missiles left or not. They've been relatively ineffective, still deadly, and it's awful. But they haven't been this kind of weapons of mass destruction we feared. And the number of launches they have is deteriorating by the day. Every time they launch, it sends a heat alert. You know, Israel is able to go after those launch sites. They don't always get them, but I think their ability to, you know, attack significant, you know, gone. The IRGC has seen a lot of its leadership, you know, killed. And their military is very hierarchical, very much like the Russian military. You know, the leaders make all the decisions. It gets passed down. So it's very disruptive. So maybe this does start opening regime change. But when I look at it, it's not something initiated by the US Or Israel. It has to be a Groundswell where the 90 million people in Iran say, enough of this. Our economy sucks compared to what it's been. We've been on Hajj, we've been to Iraq, we've been to Saudi Arabia, we see A very different and more open lifestyle. We want that.

Peter (7:21)

I mean, I just have to ask you, Peter, having these conversations with these retired generals and such, we've had this conflicting sort of opinions on Iran's nuclear program in general. Tulsi Gabbard obviously said they were nowhere near having a nuclear bomb capabilities anytime soon. And obviously now we hear things from, you know, Rubio like they have enough for multiple weapons. All of this, it just fires off my spidey senses of the Gulf War when we saw Colin Powell talk about weapons of mass destruction on the floor of Congress. But it was really about oil.

Gina (7:55)

Yeah. And to me, I think this, it goes back to one. Israel sees an opportunity to kind of end the threat of Iran once and for all. Right. You know, they've really wiped out the proxies, Right. Hamas has been very quiet, who hooties have been non existent. So you've seen the proxies weak, you've established their superiority. So I think this just creates an opportunity where they can go through and kind of really get Iran out of this equation and where they've been regardless of where they stand on nuclear weapons or not. And I think what doesn't get talked about enough is the tacit support at the very least that you're getting from the rest of the Middle East. As far as we can tell, Saudi Arabia is desperate to move beyond a fossil fuel economy. They want to become the data center capital of the world. They believe energy is expensive to ship, data is cheap to ship. Those countries are, if not outright supporting Israel, are certainly hoping this ends. Right. Iran has become kind of the enemy of the entire region. So I think economically, I agree that's probably more not necessarily about oil, but the economics, the economics of the region getting the Abraham Accords back on. I see no reason why Israel would stop. And I think maybe we are just accelerating the what Israel could do on.

Peter (9:07)

Their own, wagging the dog a bit. But let's talk about obviously the effect that this is having on markets. Dave, we kind of have always joked every week, I can't believe bitcoin's still holding above 100. I can't believe Bitcoin's holding over 100. I mean it got to 98.2, but it was like seven hours and then right before the day was closing right back above 100.

Mike (9:27)

Yeah, I didn't care. Well, I mean I think markets cared. I mean if oil went to over 100, I think that Bitcoin would be comfortably below 100 because they be afraid that that's Going to spike inflation, which is put the Fed in the double bind where they can't do anything, etc. Etc. But to say the markets aren't caring is, is really not true. I mean, yeah, Bitcoin is holding above 100. Bitcoin dominance is basically almost at its all time high. Damn close to. I was just checking this morning, most, you know, cryptos, including Mike's fate. Well, I don't know if Doge is Mike's favorite, but we'll. But, you know, you know, the, the. But his favorite is down over 30 in the last month. Actually 35. I mean the. In, in the. I don't know what's the opposite of alt season, you know, rabbit season, duck season, alt season or what's the opposite? Whatever the opposite is, that's what we're in. You know, pretty much everything that is not bitcoin has been getting slammed and this weekend was no different. I mean, you know, things like, you know, pretty much all of them at one point were down 15 down, you know, 10 plus percent now, you know, depending on when you measure it from. So markets definitely care, but bitcoin is different than the rest of the market. Bitcoin will ultimately be a hedge here and its correlation this weekend looks more like to gold than the other way around.

Peter (10:50)

So the risk assets that got the risk off treatment are the altcoins.

Mike (10:54)

Right.

Peter (10:55)

And bitcoin clearly behaves like, yeah, remember.

Mike (10:57)

Everything, all of it trades over the weekend. Right. You know, bitcoin's the most liquid and certainly, you know, people don't understand, you know, this dynamic. So I want to explain it. So when something happens over the weekend and people's hair is on fire, sorry guys, but you know, some of us still have some. And then, you know, the, the bosses come down to the trading desks and they say, lighten up guys. We got to get our risk asset profile off. You know. So what do you do? Well, you sell what you can sell. What could you sell on a Sunday morning? Well, basically, if you're a hedge fund, the only thing you can sell is bitcoin. So you sell it and then you come in and the futures open up later. And the futures are like, oh, it's no big deal. Does the boss say, oh, buy it back now? No, they don't. So what do you do? You got a dip down. And you know, because stuff got sold, someone had to buy it. And the people who owned it the last time will scale back into those positions as things normalize over a longer period of time. So Everybody who got conditioned because of the massive V bottom in March of the pandemic think V bottoms happen. V bottoms are exceedingly rare. And it's really important to understand that. Good. I got Mike nodding. V bottoms are exceedingly rare. They only happen in really extreme oversold situations where people have actually capitulated, not started to lighten up. And so what you saw is a continuation of the trend which is down toward the bottom of the trading range. It's totally normal. People had to sell a little bit more and now we're back in the trading range. But to expect it to V bottom right back up to the top of the range seems silly because that's just not the way markets work. Now that said, we'll see what things going forward. I mean, look, I, I have fairly strong thoughts on, on what happened this weekend that's a bit different than some of the ones that we've heard. I try not to get overtly political or, or put it out there, but I think it is absolutely worth saying something in a world of disinformation where none of us, maybe some of the people Peter talks to know, but none of us have access to the intelligence briefings to compare. Going after the, the man who, you know, we had to put. We had a president in the Gulf War and I was massively against, you know, W's Gulf War, massively and thought it was idiotic from the beginning. You know, anyone who knows me knows that I said that back then we don't, didn't really have X. So you know, or, or Twitter for people to have it being locked. But the reason was because this WMD stuff when Iraq had never ever done, you know, they were not a state sponsor of terror. Right. To compare Saddam Hussein's Iraq who went after his domestic enemies and the Kurds and various people. He was a bad dude, but he never went after the way Iraq does, the way Iran does. In point of fact, the Israelis were against the Gulf War. You might remember that they did not like it. Why? Because they knew that Iraq was the counterbalance to Iran at that period of time. The Iraq Iran war kept created Middle east stability for almost a decade. And people and, and Peter go, you can go talk to your friends. I guarantee you they will agree with me because they know this is true. So this is a very different dynamic. The dynamic here is simple. The largest, you know, offensive attack against Israel in, you know, basically since the, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War was carried out on October 7th of 20. You know, we all Know what happened. We all know it was Iranian money behind it. They're not going to forget that. They'll never forget that. The people, the proxies, claim they would do it again and again and again if given funding. Iran remember something. You know, we talk about war. All these people are conveniently forgetting a simple fact. Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist. Their stated policy is war with Israel. They didn't declare war because you can't declare war on something you don't consider illegitimate. They are in a state of war, full stop. The question is, is it hot war or cold war? Israel is our treaty ally when they are in a state of war. This is not the same thing. Now, putting feet on the ground will absolutely go to Congress. Obama people forget how many people he bombed during his thing. I just don't want to hear about this crap. You know, the, the fact is, what Peter said before in his monologue is really important. The thought process is if it's, if you're going to have peace through strength, you have to be willing to use it. You can't draw a red line in the sand and say no. Right? And, and then ignore it. Now, whether or not they are close to nukes or not, understand what, what the world's largest terror organization having nuclear power, having nuclear weapons means, that is not the same thing as anything else. So I'm done with the rant. But I think it's important to understand that. And it's important to understand that. Look, I don't know what I, I would normally say I would trust the Mossad and Israeli intelligence more than most intelligence services, but I don't trust Netanyahu. I don't personally, but then again, I don't have information about Netanyahu. We don't have access to these intelligence briefings. So for us to talk about this stuff, it just, it just makes me, makes me crazy because we have no clue. I mean, you know, you haven't heard anything from Tulsi Gabbard for three weeks because it, because maybe, maybe she saw new intelligence or maybe she's been shut up and they're doing this for exactly what Peter said. But I don't want to talk.

Peter (16:22)

I assume it's for economic reasons, which at least makes our conversation more, more interesting.

Mike (16:26)

But I guess the question, though, yeah, one more thing. On economics, what Peter said is really important. Understand who wins if the Straits of Kormuz are closed, who's the big winner?

Peter (16:36)

United States. Because we're self.

Mike (16:39)

Putin is the biggest winner by far. If the straits of Hormuz are closed. Why? Because Russia's economy is the most. Is. Is. Is basically dependent on oil prices. Do it. Do the Russian GDP to oil price graph and you'll see it, Mike, you probably have that handy. It's a big number. Now who's the biggest loser G who gets most of his oil through the straits of our moves. This is a very interesting dynamic, but it's highly, highly unlikely that the Chinese will. Will be happy, you know, if that happens because it'll be bad for them. Putin, of course, mixed feelings, right? But because I don't think he wants to be seen as benefiting and have the. What, what is it? The unlimited friendship, Mike? Is that what you call it?

Dave (17:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike (17:25)

Have the unlimited friendship. Sour. But there's lots of moving parts here. My bed has always been. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gina (17:32)

So I think, you know, one thing you mentioned China, right, Would be the biggest loser in Xi. I think she's fairly aggressive and probably pushing Iran. And when we talk about deterrence, right, people are scared of China. Rest of the world is scared of China, right. You know, the hoodies don't shoot at Chinese ships because they know that China will not have a measured response. And Afghanistan, they don't mess with what China is trying to do in Afghanistan because they won't have a measured response. So I think they've been way ahead of us in terms of this deterrence. We are starting to take a step towards it. And I know we kind of talked briefly about regime change. I thought it was really nice. One of the generals here, maybe two of them, said this thing to me that kind of shocked me. But we've only ever been successful in three regime changes. Japan, Germany and South Korea. And both of those we kept troops in the region for generations. It takes a general multi generation commitment to change a world order. And I never really thought about Japan that way. Certainly not even Germany or necessarily South Korea. But yeah, I think hopefully if we. Are there any of this talk about regime change, it's that something develops organically because we have been a disaster when we try and do these things.

Mike (18:37)

And it never works without enormous monetary influx to rebuild.

Peter (18:42)

And that works anyways.

Gina (18:44)

Generations, you have to be their generations.

Peter (18:46)

I guess we've never done it well. We've never done it well. We, we just send billions and billions of dollars into the void of United States companies, you know, and the war machine and they just collect checks and.

Mike (18:58)

Nothing ever gets there is literally one.

Gina (19:01)

We seem to be fighting with the people we put in Charge.

Mike (19:03)

That's right. And look, I once again, very against the notion of regime change, mostly because of a practical matter. It never works. The only hope is not our hope. The only hope, and it is a hope, is from the Gulf Cooperation Council, the gcc. They would like to see moderation. Right. And they are in the region. We might want to support them, but it would be economically under the table, etc. Us trying to go in and being the face of it, it's almost guaranteed. I mean, look, that's how we got in the mess in the first place. The United States propped up the Shah of Iran, right. You know, for, for years. And we're blamed for his excesses. And so the pendulum swung back in the other direction. You know, if we don't learn from our mistakes, I don't know what. But, you know, but you're right. But I don't think the market thinks we're going to do that. I think the market is, is taking, you know, Trump at his word in this case, that, yeah, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna use air power, we're gonna use deterrence, but we're not changing regimes, we're not putting American boots on the ground, etc. That's what the market's saying, whether they're right or wrong or not.

Peter (20:05)

Let's talk about the market. Let's talk about the market and refocus because, Mike, I think a lot of people would have expected, given it happened on a weekend. So stocks got their chance to dip in theory and bounce right back by Monday. Right. But why do you think that the market is not reacting more to this? We do have a long history of these temporary geopolitical events that end up kind of being dips to buy.

Dave (20:31)

It was the classic example, I think, of human nature. We only know the last events and we have to extrapolate to the future. And I love that it was a quote from Einstein, who Stein once said, yeah, the questions are the same, but the answers have changed. And this is clearly the case now. We Iran looks like very much like when they attacked Israel in 2023, very much like Battle of the Bulge. It was the beginning of the end. And now they've lost their superiority and they have really. It's going, they're going down fast. And as far as the cutoff of crude oil is very unlikely now it's shift back to what's happening in the global economic situation. Base in tariffs, base in declining demand for crude oil, increasing supply price must go lower over time, particularly with what's happening. You've seen that in the bond yields this morning. They're back down. So I think the markets are all shifting back now to what's happening globally. And this is not helping that situation. And to me it's part of the reason gold still going upwards because gold sees okay we have unstoppable deficit spending in this country. At least we try to stop that. With the stock market still elevated that quick little flip downward that Dave pointed out that was has so far if we continue higher will be one of the sharpest recoveries in history. It's classic bear market rally but it's also the sentiment everything shifted to me for the macros downward but people's my main minds and brains can't shift from buying the dip until it stops going up. And to me that's where cryptos lead. So the Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index on the year is down 16%. One third of that is bitcoin. I have to use that index because too many indices overweight bitcoin. That to me is where things are going. We have to purge. I do focus on dogecoin because it's it's just you always focus on a primary one. It could easily go back to zero and not matter. And that's the problem with that crypto space. There was one it mattered as limited supply increase in demand adoption but now there's gazillions of them and that's part of to me tilts this space over. This is a commodity and commodities track physical things. I mean I can touch gold and touch corn but these are just numbers on the screen. And you know I always call numbers on screen but these are all they are and to me the risk is they go downward. So I to stick still have that bent. And the key thing to think about with bitcoin is the stock market goes down bitcoin is going to go down more and it's showing that in that oomph. So I'd still stick with this hundred thousand level was the indication for all risk assets to be peaked out. December 6th is when Bitcoin first reached a hundred thousand. Since that day goes up 30% stock market Suns to me the risks are downward and now we're tilting to the next measures of data. The big picture for me is still yeah McGlone's been early and wrong but you've seen in gold you see it in crude oil's had its bounce and now those bond yields are starting to tick downward. You know we had major the extremes on the screens about how horrible The US is never going to cut their deficit and bond yields are going to stay above 5% but we see people are just grabbing that duration. The student investors get what happens historically when you have too much inflation, you tilt over to deflation. 5% in the long bond was a bargain. I think it still is. So to me in the macro that's where things are going. We maybe will get lucky. Stock market's going to go up. So I'll end with the key levels I put as to watch for this year's. I just published my mid mid year outlook for commodities. If, if gold stays below 3,000 that's wonderful. Still up on the year. It's a great sign is why mess with the rock when you can buy stocks and they're taking off, it stays above 3500 which is my base case. That's a good sign that you don't want to be anything but risk off assets, Treasuries and gold. And I'm still sticking with that bias.

Mike (24:01)

So let's unpack the, the index for a second. So in the same period of time that Bitcoin is up about 5% which look, we all know I hate choosing obscure time periods such as year to date but okay, let's just use it just because it makes a point. Ethereum's down 30 some odd percent and quite a few of the altcoin market in general have been much more like Ethereum than, than like Bitcoin. So what are you seeing? What you're seeing is an incredibly. This is maybe the most ob in markets that I have ever seen. You are seeing all the people who, all the crypto bros. Everybody who is crypto native, everybody who are the ones who used to wear hoodies to conferences and now you know, maybe they, they don't anymore. All selling, taking profits and getting on with their life while new buyers have come in that have been focused on Bitcoin. Not sure where that noise is coming from.

Peter (24:58)

Somebody's having a emergency in the background.

Mike (25:01)

Yeah. So you're seeing this incredibly obvious trend. It hasn't changed. It actually accelerated again this weekend. It is, it is very, very clear that within crypto the, the, the that's who's selling, that's who's selling Bitcoin, that's who's selling Ethereum, you know, whatever. Because there aren't any really institutional, you know, demand in Bittensor. David Sachs may say he likes it but you know, just look what that's done. I mean that, that was at 4 that long ago. It's at 300 now. Right. You know, those are very large moves. And so you're seeing what is classic crypto end of cycle, you know, for, you know, end of end of cycle selling. There's no question that that's what we're seeing. And the only reason bitcoin is where it is is because there's new buyers coming in and those new buyers are, are, are still not even close to really being into it, you know, but they have certainly started. When you talk about bitcoin treasury companies, I mean, look, yeah, as I said, yeah, there's going to be a few guys that are going to do, try to run the playbook and they'll do what they'll, they'll always do. I mean maybe we have a sustained, you know, sideways to bear market and investor interest wanes and people lose interest. But the real macro trend of treasury, of corporate CFOs saying, you know what, maybe putting some money in, in this isn't so stupid. Yeah, that's the one. I saw that this morning.

Peter (26:29)

Yeah. Billion dollars. This is pomp. Nothing against pomp, nothing against this specifically, just talking about a trend. But as he says, this is the largest initial fundraise in history for a publicly traded bitcoin treasury company. It'll be a billion bucks. This is a reverse merger into a publicly traded spac. Which part of that does not trigger all of your holy crap. Maybe this is a bubble census.

Mike (26:54)

I don't like the word this is a bubble, but it certainly triggers my holy crap senses.

Peter (26:58)

Look, I like these guys. I'm sure they'll all do fine. I'm just saying, come on man, how many of these are we going to end up with? And this is not just like you said, these are not balance sheet companies buying bitcoin to hedge against dollars. This is financial engineering to beat bitcoin.

Mike (27:13)

Well, yes, but the line in there, that's the most important line is to create products. Right. You know, there is a, there is an enormous demand there and we could focus on a deep bitcoin show it's worth, it's worth keeping that in mind. I mean, how many thousands of banks exist, you know, for dollar based products? I mean they're going for. If you're going to tell me there's going to be 10 companies that are going to be the nouveau bitcoin banks, not really using the word bank because it's different. Yeah, but that doesn't, that doesn't freak me out. Now will all the banks try to get into it as well? Yes. You know look, we're still in a different world, right? You know, it's, there's a lot of, there's a lot that can be unpacked there. But I think it's very important before we like dive into bitcoin, treasury companies as the big buyers, I mean, clearly they have been. I mean, I saw the stats over the weekend that show that without, you know, etf, a lot of which is here, and treasury companies buying bitcoin, you know, you would have expected bitcoin to drop the same 30% that the rest of the altcoin market has dropped. And so, yeah, you know, it's, it's cyclicality meets, meets supply and demand dynamics. And we don't know where it's going to go from here. It could deepen, right? You know, a cyclical fall in crypto. Markets have been down what, 60, 70%, right. Are we halfway there? I don't know. You know, if we're halfway there and it persists as it currently is and bitcoin shallow, you know, stays shallow and soft for another n number of months until the next quote, cycle, you know. And I think, as I said last week, I think it's a political cycle that matters. That's really, I would like to get back. I mean, Peter, I don't know what you guys are thinking. Mike, I don't know what you guys are thinking, but you know, really, if the straits don't get closed and oil starts sliding back down, given all of the, the dynamics, what's next for rates? What's next for liquidity? What's next for, you know, for politics? I mean, we're not, we don't hear a lot about tariffs anymore. Mostly. Yeah, we have, you know, some noises Japan and stuff. You know, we signing some deals. But, you know, when is the Fed certain enough to act? And when does Trump appoint a, a shadow Fed governor? You know, you know, those are the things that markets are going to really care about. I mean, at least I think so.

Gina (29:31)

I did like Waller Friday. I wish he'd been around Wednesday when he said maybe July could be on the table. I think the Fed and I turned more and more negative on the Fed's views. They're behind the curve now. You look at the jobs data, the only single print that was good in the last two months has been the establishment survey headline payroll number, the one that gets published, the one that gets talked about. Anything beyond that has been poor. Jolts has been poor. ADP has been poor. The household survey has been poor. The birth death model has accounted for more than all the jobs that have been reported. And the birth death model is notoriously wrong and keeps getting revised down. So I think he's. And the last time unemployment stayed the same despite actually a 0.2% drop in jobs in the household survey. It only stayed the same because 0.2% of the population stopped looking for work. The labor participation rate, all those things signal weakness. The number of people trying to apply to law school is off the charts. That tends to be a sign that graduating seniors are like there's no job, so I might as well do law school or something to keep myself busy. So I think he's underestimating the jobs weakness. I think that will start showing up relatively rapidly. And his whole inflation argument I think has just been horribly wrong. At 10 and we are very bearish. I was when we were at full on Liberation Day tariffs. That was scary. At this 10 percentage sort of thing, it's tolerable. USMCA, more and more goods are being compliance. One thing that people have not paid close attention to is but only a certain number of people bothered getting US CMA compliance approved approval before the tariffs went in effect because there was no need to do it. Once you put the tariffs in, there's been an upsurge in the number of people getting their products approved as USMCA compliant. There is a cost of doing it, but a lot of these products were already. So that big cross border, you know, stuff is not as bad as we thought. You know, you're seeing, I think companies eat some of the costs, at least initially. And then two, it's this whole concept that everyone's just going to raise their prices tomorrow is just wrong.

Mike (31:27)

Right.

Gina (31:28)

Most people agree to sell things to you for the next six months to a year. It's going to take time for these things to pass through. Plus where there's so much uncertainty, everyone's expecting a pause. I think there's upward pressure on inflation, but I don't think it gets much beyond 2% to 3% over the course of a year from where we are on tariffs. Having said that, if we're slower on the economy, spending's coming down a little bit. I think they are fighting the wrong battle. I think they should be moving quicker. We're now, I think at 433, 434 on tens. I think you're at the point you might break and we get back below 420 and head towards 410. A lot of people have been short the other two things before I kind of quiet down on this is we all talk about this huge deficit and yes, 7 trillion over 10 years is a lot of money, but then people will forget where's it showing up. It bleeds in so slowly over time. There's so much other noise and to be honest, there is revenue coming in from the tariffs right now. So that does not get accounted on a lot of these things. I think the surprise will be that we get back to 4% on 10s long before 5%. We might get there at some point down the road, but right now I actually think yields are going lower and that will help risk assets across the board.

Dave (32:33)

Darn. It's so much more fun when we disagree. But Peter, I'm, I'm on top of. The key thing I want to point out is so hits take some risks of some predictions. Come on, let's have some fun. The, the recession we didn't get in 2023 wrong is coming and it's coming in a bigger way than most of us will ever see in our lifetime. Just look at normal cycles. It's happening. Gold figuring it out. And the key thing is I don't think the Fed can or will ease until the market goes down and tells them to ease. Partly because we talked about this a year ago in this program. If you ease with the stock market on a tier, you create a bubble. They help accentuate some of the biggest bubbles in history. Now we're two times GDP. Only two times in history we've been like that. 1989 in Japan, I remember that one well. And the 1929 US don't remember that one obviously wasn't around. But this is where we are now and the Fed knows that. And so let's look at example what happened this year. That big swoon we had in the stock market, it was about $13 trillion of market cap. That was 40% of GDP. About 20% swing in stock market. 40% of GDP. That's only happened the last time that was was about 100 years ago. And we're the highest versus the rest of the world. So to me, this is what the market's telling us. We're at the end game. The Fed can't really ease anymore because they ease. The stock market goes up, bond yields stay strong, we get more inflation, they're done. We have to wait for that to tilt over. And, and the epicenter of this whole thing are cryptos. So yeah, bitcoin's great. I get it. It's different. It's all different. But here's the key thing I like the point about crypto cryptos. I really enjoyed Michael Saylor in 2020 when, when I was in Miami in 2022, we were the first office to open up an open event and I interviewed him deliberately. But in 2020 he discovered Bitcoin at 10,000. We all agreed it's going up. That was you're supposed to be buying when they're crying. Everybody hated it. Now they were supposed to be selling when they're young. So this is the problem I have with the whole space is I fully expect a pretty significant drawdown in all risk assets. Cryptos are the riskiest. Bitcoin stuck in that phase. I'm sorry with the high correlations with all other cryptos. We get that worked out and maybe it's a chance to buy and everything's still tilting that way. So I'll end with this. The key thing I'm worried about is every day that goes by we're putting a little more distance on that. May 22nd peak Bitcoin peaked at 112. The same day the bond yield reached like a 20 year high. To me the tilt is downward. And now we need the stock market to save us. It has to go up. And that's when I say, well, just look to buy other things and stick with treasuries and gold.

Gina (34:58)

I think we might agree on one other thing. And I think to me Wall Street's very good at eventually punishing the thought of free money and the fact that these crypto treasury companies get to trade at massive premiums in many cases to their holdings. Where some may be trying, as you said David, trying to become a bank or something like that. But I think most are just like creating this kind of noise and it looks like free money and free money tends to end badly. And that to me I would feel much more comfortable with crypto, the entire infrastructure, everything, if that wasn't such a big part of what seems like the flows into crypto. I would like to see that kind of wiped out trade back at nav or close to navigation and whatever that happens, you know, to crypto at the time. But right now we're seeming the opposite stage and it just seems bad to me. That tends to be, you know, I've been around Wall street long enough. Free money is what always gets people in trouble. And this perception that there's this free money is scary.

Mike (35:54)

Well I, the problem with, with, with that sentence and is that I tend to agree anytime people say this time is different, my spidey senses go crazy and I'm like, okay, wait a minute, you know, no, no. There are certain axioms in finance tapping into a desire to build products and services makes sense. Using the words products and services as a proxy for we're going to get me some of that sweet Bitcoin and get, and get a premium is not so sensible. And so it's going to be the way markets are. I got a lot of hate when I basically laughed about Meta Planet and I said, listen, there is a old fashioned. We've seen this multiple times before arbitrage. Meta Planet at the at right now is one of the only companies and only way that Japanese brokerage account investors can invest in Bitcoin and they're at.

Peter (36:49)

A stupid strategy four years ago.

Mike (36:51)

It's a stupid premium that is going to disappear. When that premium disappears, the only question is, will Bitcoin be at a hundred thousand or three hundred thousand? If Bitcoin is at a hundred thousand, when that premium disappears, Meta Planet is dramatically lower than it is today. If the bitcoin is at 300,000, then maybe that, you know, you just had a underperformance vehicle but you still, you know, you end up okay. And most investors, let's be clear, do not care about relative performance. Only the professionals do. Most investors just use it to pick, okay, what should I buy? Okay, I should buy this. Now the what's going to happen is you're going to see decreasing effects. The way it plays out, the way we saw it on Long Island Iced Tea, the way we saw it in the web. It doesn't matter. It's always the same when people start saying there's free money, the originals in the in that generally end up being worth a lot more, you know, a next cycle later. So, you know, and I, I pointed this out, probably the biggest slam tweet I've ever given to Mike was this weekend when you started comparing all of this stuff. And I basically said, listen, you know, there were people, lots of them, who said, who saw the, the collapse of the Internet companies, the pets.coms which had no business model yet use their IPO proceeds to buy a Super bowl ad. That's why they're always. For those who don't know that that's why pets.com is always the one that people point to. But there were hundreds of them, companies that raised crazy valuations and secondary offerings, etc were flush with cash because they had a website, but they didn't have a sustainable business model that absolutely. When all that imploded, Amazon became a generational buying Opportunity. And people forget that and people forget the fact that the entire sector was worth More within five years and dramatically more within 10. But they were different companies. That same thing is likely to happen in the crypto sphere. It just may not be the assets that you are currently looking at other than bitcoin. And I think there are some assets that will, will find that, that will will have that, that pattern inside of crypto, but there are probably quite a few that don't. And that's where Mike, you and I totally agree. There are things that need zeros lopped off or two zeros lopped off their market cap because they don't make sense. And then there are other things that are probably, we just don't know it yet. Grossly undervalued given the potential. And so it markets are going to start figuring this stuff out. It takes a lot of time. But the one thing nobody mentioned so far is. And you talk about bitcoin treasury companies, how about the market cap of circle?

Peter (39:32)

That literally was just bringing up the chart, by the way.

Mike (39:34)

Right, the market cap of circle. So here, here you go. You got a, a company that was, we were, the people were discussing could ripple buy them for $5 billion? Oh no, they might have to go up to as high as 15 or 20 billion. What's it at now? 40? I can't tell you on the screen. So yeah, for. Where's market cap? Oh no.

Peter (40:00)

Seven, eight. Yeah, right.

Mike (40:01)

Now, am I saying that's a bubble? I don't like that word because you know, it's one stock. But understand you want to know where the money came out of Protocol xyz. I don't want to start naming that them within the crypto sphere. The money came out of those protocols and the money is going into quote stablecoin issuers. But there's only one. So we all know that they're going. It's the only one. Until there are multiple ways of investing in, in this, this is where the money's gone. And so yeah, there's been some rotation out of bitcoin into circle for sure. There's been more of a rotation probably out of crypto in, in people's accounts. I'd love to see, you know, Coinbase's non bitcoin or base balances data to say how much money came out of that to go into people's brokerage accounts to buy this. But I, I'll predict something different, that at some point in the next 10 years, buying the equity of companies that are making money and building Infrastructure in the crypto space will. Will become very, very relevant. And the crypto tokens that are very, very relevant will be the ones that have a clear economic use case. And that. And that's when those zeros come off of Doge, Mike. That's when it comes off.

Gina (41:18)

Because you have a brief anecdote which I think supports you. If I've got time, Scott, or.

Mike (41:22)

Yeah, please.

Gina (41:23)

This goes back. It was the year 2000. Michael Milken was speaking at our conference. Was a high yield conference. Milken speaking, and it's 2000. He says, hey, here's a report from 1975. Merrill lynch analyst. Buy tech. It's the best way to go. And everyone's like, oh, my God, this guy must be a genius. Nope. Almost every single one of those companies went bankrupt. It was Wang. It was all these companies that just did not. And his whole point of this thing was he was looking at biotech of the day and he's like, you could buy Big Pharma or you could buy biotech. Who spends all the money on R and D? It's biotech. And that's where he was. Focus on where the R and D is, who's developing the things that will be big in the future. That's where you want to be. And I think that was the point he was trying to make with what people got wrong about big tech in the 70s is the big tech of the 70s. DAC, NEC did not last because it was the innovators that win. He was trying to make that same point. And you know, biotech. And it's probably similar to. I think what you're saying here, Dave, is you want to be looking at the companies. Unfortunately, many of them are private right now. How you get in them might be difficult, but that's where you want to go, is the people are developing the infrastructure that will be needed, that people are developing products that people will want to demand.

Dave (42:28)

And Peter.

Peter (42:29)

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. That's. I just want to be clear. Dave is right about what the future could look like, but that is not what these companies are doing.

Gina (42:37)

Correct. And that's why I think Circle is.

Peter (42:39)

Much more saying, we're going to buy a ton of Bitcoin with other people.

Gina (42:42)

So that's why I find something like.

Peter (42:43)

And then we'll make some products later.

Gina (42:45)

Yeah. No. So I like things like Circle much better. Like that. They've obviously developed. They found a niche. They were. I love the fact that they were very early to transparency. Right. You can find their the BlackRock Mutual Fund that they invest in that holds all their things. Like it's incredibly transparent what they hold. I like that it was innovative company. I do not like these companies that just put it on their balance sheet.

Peter (43:05)

I have a video for you guys. So I just brought it up while we were talking about this. David Bailey, who I like, the CEO of Bitcoin magazine, obviously the guy who throws bitcoin Vegas, the guy who got Trump largely was behind him and he's Nakamoto. Right. So they did 650 million. I don't know what the number was for their raise. And they're investing in other bitcoin treasury companies. But he said all the quiets part out loud recently on a quick stream. I'll just show it to you guys. I don't know if you've seen it.

E (43:31)

It was the fifth best performing hedge fund in the world last year and I think we're probably the number one best performing hedge fund in the world this year. Sorry about UTXO, about $30 million total for UTXO Management. I don't know how much we've paid out. Like a lot, way more than we've raised and we're sitting on probably about half $ billion AUM right now. It's going up pretty quickly.

Peter (43:50)

Here's the good part.

E (43:51)

We've been doing these bitcoin treasury plays and we've done enough of them where we were like, what? Wow, this is the new meta. The ultimate irony here is tokens were always securities. Just no one wanted to call them that, but they were always securities. Like every token you bought, you bought it to make money. And now instead of buying tokens and pretending they're not securities, we're just like buying securities and pretending they're tokens. And now the only thing in crypto that ever had product market fit was like 100x gains and now 100x gains have come to traditional securities. And so now like the game has changed and it's like, guess what? There's like way more money in like the capital markets than there is in like the crypto markets. Like way, way, way, way, way, way more money.

Peter (44:35)

So I think it's pretty clear, I mean this is the person who's doing them. Listen, they're going to make a ton of money. I think he's 100% spot on and right about what he's saying. But this is about gains right now. And the new Meta and way and the new altcoin market is bitcoin treasury companies and crypto Adjacent stocks like circle.

Mike (44:56)

Well, I mean it is the point that is there, the whole securities thing. It. Remember we had a regime that was.

Peter (45:04)

Because of the sec.

Mike (45:05)

Yes, it's because of the sec. But it's also understand something. There is a third asset class that monotechnology has enabled. It should be part of the capital stack. If you're a company and you sell shares, you're selling ownership. If you sell debt, you're selling debt. Right. And yes, there are different ways of combining them. There is a third thing you can sell and there's also a way that, that others that are not corporations but are more loose agglomerations can do, which is you can sell part of a future revenue stream or you could sell ownership in a product that people are going to use, not in the company that makes the product. And that is something that is new and that is what the, that is what most cryptos are. Now, is there any reason that should be treated differently? No, they're treated differently because they're not subject to the accredited investor rule. Which means, yes, Peter, you can beat early stage investing in crypto. The problem is there's less protection there. And I don't mean protection from regulation, I just mean in terms of disclosure, like you don't know what the hell you're buying. Right? A lot of people buy stuff they don't know what the hell they're buying. And you know, and the reason for 100x's is because it's like VCs. VCs have lots of 100x's. They also have lots of go to zeros. Right? And so, you know, the trick of the VC is you invest in 30 portfolio companies. You hope one or two of them is 100x. You hope a couple of them, you know, kind of get by and you know that 90 of them plus are going to go poof. Well, the same thing is going to be true with crypto. Only in crypto they don't go poof, they go forever. They trade on forever. And, and they look like, they look like the charts of a lot of the stuff that Mike likes to make fun of. By the way, I'm picking on you, Mike, but I like to make fun of them too. So it's exactly right. But there is something here that is different. And none of this has anything to do with bitcoin. It now has something to do with bitcoin because what you're pointing out, because people have realized that if you have an asset that you believe is going to is 90% undervalued and you can lever it. Well, you know your guest on your show, I gave him credit last week, you know Maurizio, when he made the point about buying houses is really just a leverage way of shorting the dollar. Bitcoin treasuries are just another way of shorting the dollar on leverage. That's all it is. And the question is, is can you, if you buy it via a company, people have to ask yourself the question is that safer? Is that easier? Does that take, does it de risk it from your perspective, the operational risk? Right. And honestly I think people. No, I think people are overpaying.

Peter (47:47)

I was going to say they're doing it because they think that it's the next hundred x gain, not because it's de risking. Nobody, nobody's buying, nobody's buying any of these companies instead of Bitcoin because they're a long term investor in bitcoin and a believer.

Mike (48:00)

No, except for MicroStrategy. If you believe that he's going to be able to build because of scale a suite of products and, and do things that are smart. I mean look, there's no question that Misty is one of the reasons why the bitcoin market is less volatile than it was before Misty. It's just true. You have a team of, of professional investors at scale selling bitcoin options in to which will in fact depress, you know, actual realized volatility. I mean it's just a fact. I mean talk with, you know, dark side. I know his actual name but he's an options trader who understands and talks about this all the time on, on, on, you know, on various spaces. That's just axiom. When you have a lot of volatility sellers, if you get things that people selling a lot of covered calls, the upside volatility goes down and so does the downside volatility for different reasons. People need to understand that when there is when options volatility when you are selling it. And so when you see realized Vol will go down when this happens. So you're seeing that happening. That doesn't mean that it's suppressed forever. It just means it's part of the equation. And so you're seeing this break. And so a large part of when Mike and I disagree is on Bitcoin versus crypto. Crypto @ some point will be a technological layer and an evolving asset class that there will be rules for. The difference is we're now pretty confident there will be rules for it. Yes, we have to get through the, the genius at getting through the House. Yes. We may have to go into the next thing for you know, before the midterms, before we get market structure. But ask yourself a question. Does anybody think that the smart Democrats who are which is why you got 68 votes for the Genius act want to give crypto as an issue to the Republicans in the midterms? Does anybody think that? Because if not we're going to get legislation and we're going to get rules and the rules are going to be written by people like PA Atkins and, and you know and, and Jamie Selway at Trading and Markets who completely agrees with me on this which is we need disclosure based rules that make sure that people when they buy a crypto know what they're investing in and know what the economics are. And, and that's something that we all think makes sense. And so to me that's the bull case for the industry. Is that the bull case for any particular asset? Well now you need to do research and we're not going into that. This is a macro show but on the macro that's there.

Peter (50:21)

Mike, I want your take on the video we saw.

Dave (50:27)

Bit disconcerting. It's the kind of things you expect to and I remember from history that happens near peaks and bubbles and we said and Peter said it when money is so easy to make and you have to do this and you have to leverage and I, I just have a problem with that having lost a lot of money in those kind of markets and made a lot of money in other markets and usually the best time to buy is when everybody hates people like him are getting stopped on out that one they're overweight in their long So I, I just, you see the whole macro is just so tilted towards people got so used to making so much money so simplistically we had a few corrections and now like this the whole thing with bitcoin Treasuries it sounds scary now because that just completely adds systematic risk to buying an asset that has very high correlations very highly correlated to the stock market. The key thing I want to point out like what's happening with circles delightful. They're a company that makes that's harnessing this awesome technology to be able to tokenize dollars. They have great revenues and what we're seeing is people are investing in companies have upside rather than just a digital token that's going to go up because people are going to buy more. That to me is a little bit more you know it has earnings things like I was comparing dogecoin to bank of America and Bank of America made $19 million in gross earnings. So, so that's the key thing is this massive casino needs purging. It's starting. I think like I said Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index down 16% on the year. With the S&P 500 up 3% you get an S&P 500 down 10%. I think the whole space is down 50% this year.

Peter (52:04)

All coins are down so bad. All coins are down so bad. And I really think it's the same liquidity from the same people that's going into bitcoin treasury companies and aggressively trading coin and circle and all these things. But Peter, I want to know what you think when you see that. Because Mike, it's interesting. You know those would usually be tops and bottoms when retail is making a ton of money. But retail is not making anything on these bitcoin treasury companies really. Right. This is now it's, it's, they're just launching. So it's kind of like the guys who are raising the capital, the investors, the I guess we'll call them insiders, they're getting these huge multiples, you know, right out of the gates. But I don't think en masse people have made a ton of money on them yet.

Dave (52:43)

Well when microstrategy they have simple things. Michael strategy. But again he, he made a 10x great call. Don't double down on that. Good luck. I've just seen the Ds we've seen and I've obviously been in a trading pits. I mean deaths and divorce and people who do those kind of things. Just good luck, be a prudent investor. And prudent investors don't double down and longs after they make 10x. They lighten up and say oh make let people like me be considered an idiot. Just we're at such an extended period for all risk guys. Even just housing is the most expensive and versus income stock markets. It's just crypto's are the leader in this and this is just part of it.

Gina (53:18)

And for all the hype with MSTR for example, right it hit 450 back in November. It was over 400, you know, back in May. It's you know, 360 something right now. Like I, I think that whole game of free money and trading at this huge premium, despite all the things they've done starts eroding. And as it becomes clear that if every second day we're going to get some new spac, creating some new trip, there's an unlimited supply of people trying to take advantage of free money. Once everyone kind of like, okay, I can do this, that tends to be what cracks. Right. Once you start realizing, wow, this is no longer that interesting or exciting. This is just a complex way to get money into it. There's a lot of use of words like arbitrage that are clearly not used in any real sense of, of the word arbitrage. There's money made mythically, like, I sold 100 million. It's just, it's been working, but even that hasn't been working anywhere near as well, right. From 450 down to 365 from November down. Like, it's struggling a little bit. And I think as these companies get launched, everyone's going to realize there's got to be a better way for me to own my cryptocurrencies. And that's either own it directly or find companies that are actually doing something with it rather than accumulating it. And by the way, I think creating all sorts of interesting convertible and preferred shares is not actually creating a product for, you know, the crypto community that is just creating something like you're identifying. Well, we haven't found this group of people who want to give us money because we're missing this. So let's create a product that sounds like it's giving them that the more.

Peter (54:50)

I think that that's. I agree with that, by the way. That's kind of the pessimistic view. You could restate the same thing in an optimistic view is that those people, people want bitcoin exposure and can't get it. So he's offering.

Mike (54:59)

Well, let's, let's be care. Let's be careful. Microstrategy strategy has done something with their scale, which is interesting, and I don't think anybody else can replicate it. What they've done with Misty and what they've done with monetizing volatility until they squeeze and squeeze. I mean, there's an old, old aphorism you can, it's. It's harder to grow lemons than to squeeze them and turn them into lemonade. Right. You know, but the fact is there's a certain amount of volatility. They seem to be at scale, and I don't think any of the other companies have that. That moreover, if volatility stays low and continues to compress, their ability to generate premia will decrease. That is simple. We, we have a word for that. We call it arbitraging out. Right. You know, in. You mentioned 89 and 90 in Japan, the amount of money that Morgan Stanley and I was there. So I know it. And I built the technology for them to do it. So believe me, I know it. And the Solomon brothers, the two, you know, one mostly using converts, one mostly using the, you know, futures. The amount of money they were able to make by doing cash stock index futures arbitrage in Japan and tilting based upon having good, good ideas of what's going to go on in the expirations was it was enormous amounts of money as the market was getting body slammed from 40,000 down to below 10,000. Yeah, it was a 75% correction in the Japanese stock market that Mike referenced during that there was massive sawtooth volatility. You know, it's, we've seen these things get arbed out. In the 80s people made money just doing index arbitrage. Pure, simple, just stock versus futures. I'm actually writing a book about some of this stuff now, but. And then eventually they had to do more quantitative techniques and whatever and it gets armed out. The easy money only exists for a year or two and goes poof. It doesn't necessarily take the entire market down with it, but the easy money goes away and people who invest in the easy money get burned earned. That's what happens. And so the question is, or which part of that cycle we at, are we at the part where we got another year or two where people are going to make some outsized gains and then the next company, the next company, the next company all get, get kind of, kind of crunched? You know, is it a, a crunch forever or do they think they're going to get a 2 or 3% or 2 or 3x premium and ultimately it comes to 0.8 and so they lose, you know, 75 or 60 of their value. That's kind of what I think will happen with some of these guys. But they're not going to fall below one by very much if they. And the ones that have actual products may trade at 1.2, 1.3 book value, by the way. That's how banks trade. And banks in bear markets can go down to 0.6 a book to book value. Right. Or lower. Because, you know, no one really trusts what their book value is. The difference between strategy and JP Morgan is when strategy says this is my book value, you can look it up on chain and know and, and you know what it is with JP Morgan? You have no freaking clue. I worked at Citigroup in 2008 and they said their book value was X. Their book value had a negative sign on it. In 2008, we know it. Absolute certainty. And you know, you know, people talk about TARP and all the other stuff. What actually happened was it was allowed banks by giving them a money machine of being able to borrow for virtually nothing and invest in T bills and treasury bonds at a guaranteed interest rate. He gave them a money machine. And that money machine given by the Federal Reserve to the banks continues to some degree to this day. And that's a large part of what the fight over Stablecoin says. So all of these things are related is kind of the point here. And the real question is what's the fundamentals under the assets? The fundamentals under Bitcoin are phenomenal for lots and lots of reasons. The fundamentals under crypto writ large is very large. But will the winners be and where will that money accrue? That's the question that investors are going to have to answer. And that's where the three of us are going to agree very. We're going to agree far more often than we disagree on that.

Peter (58:57)

Yeah. Well, for now, Bitcoin trading at 100 and 2,400 and looks like a just classic sweep of the lows on a Sunday to grab a whole bunch of liquidity. So I guess we'll see. But it's hard to say that it was much to do. More than much ado about nothing at this exact moment, guys, we're at 10.02. I appreciate your time. For those asking, James has not left us forever. He's on vacation. And we'll be back after July 4th. It's been fun having rotating guests to join and try to fill out this, this, this foursome here. Peter, you did a great job. We always appreciate having you here. Just I got to give a 32nd thing tomorrow, I will be at Permissionless in New York City in Brooklyn hosting a fireside chat with Mayor Adams on the main stage. And then it's in the description. A little, little happy hour with Mayor Adams that evening. So if any of you have a reason to come meet the mayor and give me a high five, come by, it'll be tomorrow. It's in the description. Otherwise, that's all we got. Dave, Mike, Peter, thank you guys so much. Always a pleasure.

Gina (59:59)

Thanks.

Mike (60:14)

That's dope.