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The Wolf Of All Streets
MASSIVE CRYPTO SELL-OFF: Bitcoin Collapses. Is The Worst Yet To Come? | Macro Monday
01:02:39
MASSIVE CRYPTO SELL-OFF: Bitcoin Collapses. Is The Worst Yet To Come? | Macro Monday
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- [00:01]
Scott Melker
Crypto markets have made history in all the wrong ways. Widely being reported that there were $2.2 billion in liquidations in 24 hours, the most in history, including Covid and the FTX collapse. And Ben, the CEO of Bybit, saying there were over 2 billion on Bybit alone. The APRs are wrong and it's probably more like 8 to 10 billion dollars in liquidations, mostly on Ethereum and Altcoins. Bitcoin actually hanging in there relatively well. All of this apparently because Trump has signaled large tariffs on some of our friendliest trade partners. We have so much to unpack today here on macro Monday. Let's go.
- [00:46]
Dave
Let's do.
- [01:01]
Scott Melker
What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, also known as the Wolf of all streets. Before we get started, please subscribe to the channel and hit that like button. What a weekend it's been and what a last 24 hours it has been in crypto markets. Going to be interesting to see what happens in, you know, actual markets today as they absorb all of the news from this weekend. We've got Dave, Mike and James. Good morning, gentlemen. Listen, I want to talk about this really, really quickly because this is absolutely nuts. I mentioned it before, I just saw this. This is Ben, the CEO of Bybit says that there was over 2 billion, 2.1 billion. He has it alone on Bybit and liquidations, obviously mostly Altcoins here to a large degree, after it was reported that 2.2 across the entire market was the biggest ever. Can I just say maybe, Dave, nobody should ever get liquidated, period. Like you use a stop loss and you don't get liquidated and you actually lose more when you're liquidated because of the insurance funds on these platforms. Use a stop loss. Why does anyone get liquidated ever? What is wrong with people in this market?
- [02:08]
Dave
Well, two things. First, there are people who use the liquidation engines as their stop loss, which makes my head hurt. Makes your head hurt. I think if you're over the age of 40, you look at this and you say, what the fuck are you people thinking? But you know, hey, it is what it is. Look, I said that I talked about the washing machine in this market and what's going on. And we now have clear proof that what I've been saying for the last, well, couple of years is right. But certainly for this rally is right, which is namely Bitcoin has been going up on spot buying. It was in a range and it held the range last night. 92 to mid-1100s, basically. 92 to 102 with a little bit of froth above that. And we're still sitting at 95, right? Everything else, and it's been the weak hands to strong hands. So what you've seen is people in the world of crypto said, oh, okay, well, I can sell my bitcoin to those boomers who are buying it and I can go buy really cool stuff that's going to make me 10 or 100 times my money. And it's not only boomers, it's also bitcoin maxis, it's also smart investors, but whatever. But the fact is you've seen this. So bitcoin goes up and then you get the I have to sell what I have to sell event, you know, Trump, you know, does, you know, comes out with tariffs. Now I want to talk about why on the weekend. Because on the weekend when nothing else is open and so everyone starts dumping their bitcoin, their ethereum, their this, and it's oh my God, the world's going to hell. And they look around and there's nobody left to buy because all the buyers that had taken their bitcoin to buy this shit didn't have it. And they bought it on 10x or more leverage. Which means of course, if it falls by more than 10%, they get liquidated. And so you get this monster liquidation. And by the way, when the liquidations are in things that nobody in the world, financial world cares about, no, there's not going to be a Jerome Powell cutting rates to stop people from losing money in fart coin. It's just not going to happen. So you, we have this event and you see everything underperforming Bitcoin. I don't care if it's XRP and XRP army, you guys can get all pissed off at me. I still own it, I'm still in profit on it, I don't give a crap. But idiots who bought XRP on 10 times leverage over $3 got their heads handed to them. And all the hyperbole of last week just got flushed out a toilet. And we'll see when it comes back again. Same thing happened with Solana. People who bought Solana on 10 times leverage at $2 and or $250 got their heads handed to them. You know, this is what happened. So people who took their profits, so this was effectively the great washing machine. And I hate to say it to people, the people who look, the people who are making money, people who look like me and the people who are losing money are the people who look like the Average crypto bro and the average crypto bro is getting killed because they don't understand that the real money that's going into bitcoin doesn't play in the crap that they're playing in, in, in the crypto world. So that's what you're seeing and that's why if you look at CoinMarketCap and Scott and I were doing this right before we got on, it looked better yesterday. But if you do the price, 24 hour price in Bitcoin on CoinMarketCap you're seeing on app, I mean literally everything other than a stablecoin, all of them were double digits and usually most of them were pushing 20% underperformance to Bitcoin. So we saw this this weekend and everything that we see is with a backdrop of that and we can talk more. And just to conclude this diatribe, I was walking on the streets of Key west and I saw a shirt that I had to buy.
- [05:54]
Scott Melker
For those listening, which I think I'm not arguing, I'm explaining why I'm right.
- [05:58]
Mike
I love it, Dave. I love it.
- [06:00]
Dave
So okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, go for it, Mike.
- [06:04]
Mike
Oh, that's a great way to start. I love my. I have the honor of having had four sons and one of my son when he was a teenager. They're all adults and I used to wear a shirt that says I'm looking for someone to blame. And that's what, that's what shirt remind me of. But I had some charts that I've been pulling up lately and made me think of James because I wanted to show. If I can just show something really quick because I need to get your pushback because overall my macro is. What we're doing is we're way overdue for some reversion. So I'll start with this macro first. So if you take us public debt, total debt as a percentage of stock market cap, it's the lowest in 20 years. Remember that's unstoppable. That just shows you what matters. It's a stock market cap. It's so low. And I overlay this with the gold, the gold S&P 500 ratio. I just think that's going to go up but maybe it's going to start.
- [06:51]
Dave
Ask you a question because I think your words were backwards in there. I just ended maybe, or maybe my brain isn't functioning because I'm in Key west and I'm up what feels like early. Did you say the debt is so low or the stock Market is so low.
- [07:02]
Mike
Yeah. The debt. Total stock market debt's around 36 trillion. Total stock market caps around 64 trillion. Actually it's dropped a trillion in a day. Actually a little bit more than that, which is what matters. And I'll get to that. So that's my point is this. Total stock market debt is so. I'm sorry, the total US government debt is so low compared to stock market debt. Which shows you what the problem is when you just start stock market, not debt. Our stock market capitalization is so high.
- [07:29]
Dave
That's the problem.
- [07:31]
Mike
Yeah, so I said that. Right.
- [07:32]
Dave
I just wanted to translate. So yeah, for those. Because Mike's really excited. So. So let me translate. You know, I feel like Garrett Morris sometimes. For those. The stock market debt. What Mike is saying is that as much as we bitch about government debt relative to the market capitalization of the stock market, it's approaching it's plumbing, you know, recent lows. Yeah.
- [07:53]
Mike
Extra reason loads. It's about a 20 year low. And then this is what you know, the key biases we all point out. This is looking at the other way. Total stock market cap to public debt is it's peaked. It peaked last in 2021. And it's just like that bitcoin to gold ratio. I just think it's peaked. I mean said pattern recognition now it's at 34 ounces of gold to one bitcoin. And here's what's happened since bitcoin first traded 100,000. This is when it first closed above 100,000 December 6th. This is gold. Gold's up 7%. Bitcoin's down about 6%. Okay, that's just one weekend. But also I want to point out what the problem is on a global basis is this is a average of the top five countries their 10 year note yields versus the US 125 basis points below the US and then I just show this is something more of a commodity guy. The gold copper ratio is heading higher. The key thing my point is what we're seeing now is a good reason for refinery. Maybe this thing that, that 10% correction in the stock market. Correction. This is one thing that came from our morning meeting today. Gina pointed out. Gina Mart Adams is before today or tomorrow tariffs. US tariffs on China and Mexico were zero. Now I remember talking about this decades ago with clients in the trading pits. It's like that's impossible. When the Lord's largest demand pool economy. You're 10 times the GDP of Canada to have fair trade, free trade. If you charge 0 on tariffs and they charge something and they can't. No other country can offer us the same thing. So to me, it's just kicking in. Everything that was written by Robert Lighthizer is happening in his book no Trade is free. Everything that General McMaster pointed out in his book At War With Ourselves is happening complete loyalists. And Trump has even said we need some pain. So right now the pain's getting started. The question is how long does it last? And that's when I look over it. I still stick with, unfortunately, there's gold to copper ratio. Looks like it's breaking out. Gold versus everything look like it's breaking out. Gold versus stock market. Key questions, what stops it? Main thing is the US Stock market has to stop going up, has to go, stop going down, has to go up. And it's just way overdue for just a normal 10 correction. So I think for all the next major decisions for major investors to make is let's get through this 10 correction in the stock market and then reassessed. And that to me means bitcoin should obviously drop about 30%.
- [10:13]
Dave
So the only thing before I let James go, because I want James to talk about this, just stop saying bitcoin and start talking about the rest of crypto.
- [10:21]
Mike
Because Bitcoin, 10 million of them there, Dave. Only 10 million. 10.3. Sorry.
- [10:26]
Dave
Yeah, so. Well, whatever. Oh, James, go ahead.
- [10:30]
James
Well, I mean, it's not that the debt is low. It's like you said that the stock market is way, you know, way overvalued. We, and we talk about this almost daily in our hedge fund, like how, how is that going to impact Bitcoin in particular, which has been seen as a risk on asset for so long, you know, and it always comes back to, and when we look at it, we, it always comes back to where, where can that liquidity go and why will it move out of stocks? What's the reasoning behind it? Where is it going to go? Obviously, you know, gold is a beneficiary because it's, it's the flight of safety for, for a century now. Right. So that's, that is obvious. It's going to happen. Bitcoin should be flight to safety. It's not yet. It should be. It's. But like Scott said right out of the gates in the show, you have tariff threats over the weekend, you have geopolitical unrest. And what's the, what do, what do investors sell? Whatever is open to sell. They can sell it 24 7. It's obvious. So that is one of the reasons that it, that it will make these moves so early and now it's obviously recovering from those lows. We'll see what happens. So, but again, it's still above where it closed year end. So for all that, you know, the, the panic that we see on, on Twitter and, or X and crypto X and Bitcoin in and of itself is holding in there pretty well considering the, all the uncertainty we have on the table in front of us. You know, I've expected Trump to use that sword, the tariff sword, and we'll, and wield it and see and, and make a lot of threats. We'll see what really happens today when he talks to Mexico and we talk to Canada. So that, that's just one thing. I, I want to bring up something though, and this is important. And let me, let me bring up this window here for you, Scott, so you can, you can see it. Let's, let's bring up this, if you can see that, you guys.
- [12:44]
Scott Melker
Yep.
- [12:45]
James
Okay, so, so what's important about this is, I don't know if some, some of the people are listening, may have caught my conversation with Michael Howell last Friday and we talked all about liquidity, global liquidity, where it's been, where it's going. So let's start with that one. Is that showing now?
- [13:01]
Dave
Yeah.
- [13:02]
James
So the global liquidity, where, where it's been and where it's going, you know, we had a dip in global liquidity over the last month or and a half maybe, but it's now starting to rise again. It's in that cycle, you know, it's in that four to five year cycle where it's, it's back on the upswing. And so here's what's important about what you're talking about, Mike, is that, yes, the, the liquidity, the stock market is very, very highly. It's, it's, it's rich. You know, the valuations are very rich. But what we, what we will expect over the next 12 to 18 months, 6 12, 18 months, is that there will be an expansion of money supply to catch up to this. And that's just reality. You, we can't have a collapse in the markets. We know that we can't have a collapse in the markets. It's, it would, we would, we would literally collapse our treasury markets. We can't have that. You know, we would, we would create, forget about what Doge is doing. It's a whole nother conversation that we can get into, but there's no way that we're going to be able to cut enough to, you know, overcome the deficit that would be created by a crash in the markets.
- [14:16]
Scott Melker
So even if really quickly, I think I saw that Doge had cut a billion dollars already, you know, in federal salaries and such. And someone immediately responded. Our Debt service is 3 billion a day.
- [14:27]
Dave
Right.
- [14:28]
James
So I mean, I mean like it's, it's cool, it's moving, it's moving chairs around the deck of the Titanic. Right. So we, we really have to, we, you have to, we have to focus in on the, the first principles of the money supply and that's what's most important. And so going back to that and, and the, you know, bitcoin is like this is, this is, it's a three month lag or this is like, I think Michael uses a, maybe it 8 to 12 week lag, whatever, but it's, it does lag about 3 months the money supply. You can do this on M2 also. This is his measure of, of liquidity. It's proprietary and it uses volatility and unbound volatility. And that, that is a little bit nuanced compared to M2, but they're on the same trajectory. And here's the point is that bitcoin does, it lags for three months here it's been a, above it could it, could it mean revert back toward that, you know, that global liquidity line? Yeah, but the global equity line is already rising again. So you know, this is, this is something important for people to understand that when you're looking at all of these assets and we, even if we do have short term drawdowns, the reality is long term the money supply must expand to meet the debt service. It's just absolutely must expand to meet the deficits. And unless it does, we'll have a collapse of the fiat system. And so that's, that's just first principles. It's reality. It's a long term thought process. It's a long term investment thesis. It's not short term. So if you're trading around it, sure there's going to be plenty of volatility. There's going to be volatility, I expect volatility. I would not be surprised if bitcoin dips back down into the 80s. I mean, who knows. But I do expect it to be far, far, far higher in the future. And what I mean by that is for the dollar to be worth much, much less. And forget about, forget about the dollar any other currencies. I'm just talking about the dollar's ability to Purchase the purchasing power of the dollar alone. That's all I'm saying.
- [16:35]
Dave
So, so let's put a fine point on this. The denominator of financial markets is a depreciating asset that we are printing more of on a constant basis without any end in sight. And so there have been people who have done charts of the S and P. If you took in constant dollars and go back and all of a sudden it doesn't look nearly the same as it does otherwise. And that's the point there. Now the second point to be made is those who are investing in Bitcoin are not doing it based on Bitcoin's constant from 15 years ago representation of those dollars, but rather that it's going to get an increasing stake of the store of value market globally. And then you understand why it is that James and I say it will go higher in the long term. That is a very, very powerful thing because the point of financialization is that every financial asset goes up. The point of Bitcoinization is that Bitcoin will go up one or two orders of magnitude more than everything else, precisely just to catch up. And that is the growth that we always talk about. And so, but note we're not talking about that with regard to crypto assets. I view everything else in the crypto world the same way as I view the stock market as. And some of them are real assets and some of them are bullshit. Right? You know, you buy Nvidia because you believe that it doesn't matter whether it's Chinese or other AIs, that their chips are going to be important and you're going to continue to buy them and there's going to be a future cash flow model that AI is going to do X, Y and Z. And you're going to buy Nvidia. You buy Amazon because you think that they own what they own and their cash flows are what their cash flows are. You buy Ethereum because you think that it will be the backbone, the TCP ip, if you will, of the smart contract revolution which will change the way finance is done. You do the same thing with XRP because you think XRP is going to be in the middle of the banking system. You buy Solana because you think that, fuck Ethereum, it's going to be Solana and we see it in the Meme Coin Casino and it's going to do everything else, yada, yada, yada, you can go on through everything else. I can't explain that. Answer that question for Fart Coin, though. I'M not going to lie, but we know that's pure gambling. But the point here is that if you believe that money supply is going to keep going, yes, it will influence crypto like it will influence bitcoin. But bitcoin has that multiplier effect. And that's something that, that's why, James, is the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, not the crypto Opportunity Fund. Right.
- [19:00]
Scott Melker
I mean, it's pretty clear when you take a look at this. By the way, these are wrong. Of course. This is coin glasses lagging, API, but this is the first time I've looked at a liquidation chart for 24 hours. As I said, it'll show us kind of the percentages eth, much larger than bitcoin. You rarely see that because of the sheer size of the bitcoin futures and swap market. Others, when you add that to eth, you're now @ more than double Bitcoin. That doesn't even include XRP or any of the other ones over here. Right? So let's say that Bitcoin was 25, 30% of the liquidations on this move. That's not something you generally see and very clearly speaks to what Mike has been saying for very many weeks, that there's just too much excess and flump. I mean, and fluff. I mean, here's a trump token, right? I mean, it's currently sitting at 17 bucks. I would say most people bought it in the 50 to 70 something range. I haven't taken a look at fart coin, but very clear that right now people are panicking out of altcoins and not so much out of bitcoin.
- [19:59]
James
What do you make of the large move in eth?
- [20:03]
Scott Melker
I mean, I just think that right now you have this sort of situation where anybody who's in crypto is more likely to panic out of everything not called bitcoin than bitcoin, because there's still very solid, fundamental, fundamental narratives for bitcoin and everything else you can panic.
- [20:20]
James
And this is a really important nuance. And it, it's not, it's not a nuance to people who are in, in crypto. Like they're, they're feeling the pain, tremendous pain today. That's, you know, that's not funny. We talk about it, we, we warn people about it, but this is a nuance for people who are not in crypto or people, people are sitting around the desk where Mike is, you know, that they're, they're not aware that bitcoin is stabilizing itself here as, as all of this turmoil happens around it, it's actually becoming stronger again and that's going to continue in every single cycle. And this is just a new, this is just a new blip in this cycle.
- [21:02]
Mike
So let me piggyback on that in theory. I'm glad you brought up Ethereum. When it went to 4000 my first thought is it's going to revert back to 4 to 2000. It's on that way to do that. The Ethereum, I mean it went to.
- [21:13]
Scott Melker
2098 but it was a kiss.
- [21:16]
Mike
It was a kiss. I mean a hug. You got to get people, you got to get people bearish on the lows and bullish on the highs. It's just the lesson of a commodity trader used to have here. And that's where I look at cryptos now they're so speculative and excess. The thing about Ethereum, to me it looks exactly like the copper chart. It's the same price as 20, 21, the 100 week, the 50 week, the 200 week. Moving, moving. Averages are all pointing up. I ignore the days because the dailies make you lose your hair. And X day trader, remember Bender done that. And then I, and, and I point exactly. And then I remember the lessons I learned really early in the trading pits when you had a great idea and you called seven customers and they all agreed you get to trade but they're wrong. If you had a, a great idea and they all thought you're an idiot, you don't get to trade. And you usually write that's the way I think. See Ethereum and copper right now it's like the anti technicals, everything looks bullish which means I see what the Algos are doing, I see thinking. Then I look at the optionality of that trade. Is it going down? And I see the fundamentals are it's going down now in theory I just point out massive excessive supply, competition, ease of entry in the whole space. Okay, and there's how many other Ethereum competitors. Now I look at copper, I just look over bond yields and I look over what's happening in China and what just the US is doing to the rest of the world. We used to charge zero tariffs, now they're going to, sorry, they have to pay up if they can export to the world's largest demand pool economy. It's a whole systems tilting lower. Crypto's in the front of the space. And here's my take, what we're going to look at from the future with cryptos we're going to say oh they just Lopped off a zero on valuations. Most of them should do that. And I remember this feeling in 99 in the stock market. We saw every one of those stocks that some of us were trading, day trading and having fun with. A lot of them just lopped off zeros and evaluations and then the first top 10 or 20 came out ahead. This is what's going to happen. The thing I really learned from my colleagues, Gina, Martin Adams, is the thing that's different from the past in stock market right now is a lot of the mags have earnings. We get that. But what's different is cryptos. There is just massive speculation in the space. The stuff we remember in every major bubble in history. And I think that bubble's just starting to break. I think Trump's going to do it and remember the timing for him to come in and lift risk assets when they're already the highest ever. The US versus the rest of the world. It's just bad. Even if it says it's going to be good. The optimism in the hubris is too extreme. And this is what we're right now, this is just an early trade. The question is the duration and that's what matters. This is just a couple days. This is nothing compared. I'm like, I see this, I look at that long bond 473. I think you should drop a handle off of that. Easy, bring it down to three or two. And that's based on one key thing right now. The US Stock market capitalization. Right now as we speak, it's down by $1.4 trillion. That's nothing compared to the tariffs that my colleague said is going to be like 250 billion. And this is all that matters. And I agree what you said, James, but that's big picture long term. I'm just looking at a trade that might.
- [24:07]
James
I know you agree with us long term. I do know you agree with us long term. And I'm just clarifying that that's my vision is, is that long term? Sorry, go ahead, Mike.
- [24:15]
Dave
Sorry.
- [24:15]
Mike
Yeah, so it's, it's the lessons of the book from Bernanke, Courage to act. And he only reacted after it happened. And the thing is, it can only keep get assets so high and so elevated until you get a little flip. So here's one thing I, I like to point out is we've had four years of outflows in gold ETFs, yet the price keeps going up higher.
- [24:35]
James
Why?
- [24:35]
Mike
Because the deepest pockets on the planet are buying central banks. That's going to be a flip. I think it's going to be this year. There's been no reason to buy gold when you have bitcoin cryptos. The stock market taken off in 4.5% in treasuries. That, to me, is where it's going to flip, where I still tip over to the main asset. I think, unfortunately, I was wrong last year on that one day. But still gold, I hate to say it, but it still looks like the one asset that should outperform this year, particularly if we just get a normal backup in really expensive risk assets, which starts with cryptos. And Dave, you pointed out you never get a market goes up this high without massive speculation and certainly in. In cryptos, because you can leverage. And this. Remember, my background's from leverage. And that's when you call that March.
- [25:17]
Scott Melker
We call that March top. When meme coins first started going nuts, if you guys remember, I mean, we had the same conversation. Meme coins were out of control in March. We'd reached peak ETF hype. It's going to retrace. And we had six months of boring. Go ahead, go ahead.
- [25:31]
Dave
Here's a couple of points. First point, number one, Look, I think gold's fair value is dramatically higher than where it is today. Based on its financialization, I don't think it will get to its fair value. I think bitcoin will end up getting that. But I think that if its fair value is 5,000, I don't see any reason why it doesn't get to 3,500, 4,000 thereabouts, where Bitcoin takes off. Because I do think that at some point, you know, when we're not in this sort of a deal, that money that's consistently flowing into bitcoin that thinks it's 90% undervalued is not going to care if the price doubles, Right? And I think that that's baked in the cake and we'll see what that happens. But that's. That's completely beside. Because it's all about the denominator, as I said before. But there's a couple of points that you made that I think we have to come back to. First is the tariffs people this weekend ignored. J.D. vance, who is the mouthpiece for the administration, these are not economic tariffs. And it's actually kind of funny. It's actually amazing to me how dumb people are being. J.D. vance was very, very clear that. And you see it because it was 10% against China, 25% against Canada, and 25% against Mexico. These tariffs are to Punish Trudeau and to punish Shinbaum for letting fentanyl into the United States. Full fucking stop that. He was very, very clear. Canada has the largest fentanyl production and Canadian government hasn't done daily squat to stop it. And Mexico is where it's coming as a huge amount of it. You know, 100,000 people from the opioid crisis, the vast majority from fentanyl. This is why they're doing this now. That's not to say they won't do economic tariffs in the future. McMaster could be right. I actually was on a boat cruise with a good friend of his and got a pretty good idea of where he comes from on a lot of this stuff. And he's a very smart, rational person whose sound bites often get taken out of context. But the truth is that this weekend's tariffs is about fentanyl. And yet the media hasn't picked up on that. Well, they probably have, but they don't care because they don't want to talk about it because they want to phrase it in terms of economics.
- [27:47]
Scott Melker
Canadian question, I'm sorry, Aren't they just about showing strength to negotiate from a place of strength? Yeah, I mean, I don't think, I think he was going to. I think it could have made, listen, I'm not saying fentanyl is not a problem, but I think he could have made almost any excuse pose those 25% tariffs. I mean it's very telling that they're doing 10% on China. Where by the way, Mike, I think earlier you said we don't have tariffs on China.
- [28:12]
Mike
I think he, before Trump came in, I think it was close to 3%. Now it's close to 10%. It's going up to 20%. But I want to piggyback what Dave said. I think you're spot on. We're proving, and the US Is proving that all wars now are all economic. And the US can with Trump and can absolutely crush it. Starting with China, starting with everybody who imports from China, largest exporter in the planet. You got to watch that 10 year note deal in China, Dave, you mentioned it. James. 1.63. That's economy that's clearly deflating rapidly now it's only going to get worse. And this to me why I look over from a commodities well, I see gold's going to go up and everything down. I mean everything that's deflation thing is that everything that's holding up and Trump even said it, we might see some pain. That's that big train trade I'm talking About. But it's economic now and the US is showing how much it's got the upper hand. We're the most powerful country in the world more than ever on this. What's happening with trade and we're showing it. No military thing is just not important. One thing that's proven in the military is you have offensive try to take over other countries. You can't even trying to get into Taiwan. It's just offensive. Tanks and things just don't work anymore. You can take them out with a high. Martin. In a heartbeat.
- [29:23]
Dave
Yeah, but the reason I was making this point is that the rapidity with which these things can reverse when you make. When things actually change, you're not going to get. If you were you doing tariffs or to protect American industry if that's what this salvo was. That is a long term thing. Expect it, you pass it, it's done. It isn't going anywhere unless the pain becomes too great. If your tariffs are because you want to encourage certain behaviors that have nothing to do with the economy now, maybe they won't back down and maybe it won't change. But the fact is the potential for a very rapid resolution of this particular round of tariffs is dramatically higher than with like Smoot Hawley or you know, the things in history because those are economic and economic things take, you know, quarters years to unravel. And I. And that's important. So when you add to upside surprises to the market, it's sort of like, you know, do you get a peace deal here? Do you do that? That was really my point. I Look, we could talk about the politics of whether or not it makes sense to do this or not. I actually am much more. I am actually much more supportive of this administration than I've ever been before. 4. But you know, I just wanted to make that point. The, the second point that I wanted to make which had nothing to do with the cause of the tariffs is why it. The market's not irrational. When you see the stock market. What's. What's the market open that now? I mean, you know, what are we down 2%.
- [30:51]
Mike
I mean down 1.5s P500.
- [30:53]
Dave
And what's the NASDAQ?
- [30:55]
Mike
Down 1.8. 1.8.
- [30:57]
Dave
Okay. So yeah, two on the NASDAQ. So okay. And you know, Bitcoin's down five or six. It'll recover, you know, whatever. Crypto just had a massive demand shock to its market. Those, those dollars liquidated are gone. Poof. People were leveraging up. And now why do I say That I say that because two reasons. Reason one, obviously a lot of people lost a lot of money. Okay, cool. Reason two, if you were having to 10x such a huge percentage, 10x leverage, such a huge percentage, it means that the demand was from leverage, it wasn't from real money. And so that takes time to rebuild. Now that said, one thing I want to point out, we're all American on this show and we all think about it in American terms. Remember, the casino that is crypto is global and a huge amount of the money is not American money. It's Asian money money. And if you think that we are running out of Asian money to bet and gamble, then you want to take the other side of that trade, then.
- [32:03]
Scott Melker
Can I give you some, Can I show you something just to support that? Because I wanted to bring this up. South Korea's bitcoin kimchi Premium source to 10 month high amid Trump led tariff war concerns. So people are paying 10% more for Bitcoin right now in South Korea than in the United States. If you guys.
- [32:18]
Dave
So here's a contrarian opinion that I don't know if it's true, but I will put it out there because I read it, which is that a lot of the Asian. That's true.
- [32:27]
James
You read it?
- [32:28]
Scott Melker
It was on Twitter. It's true.
- [32:32]
Dave
We all understand when I think something, I like to say it. When I read it, I want to talk about it. But it's not a crazy theory and that is that a lot of Asian investors use the liquidations. So they put a tiny piece of their portfolio in and they get it liquidated. They use the liquidation engines is their stop loss engine. Now that is true that when the dust clears, this thing could reverse a little bit quicker than people think. Now I don't know that that is true. I'm just saying I don't know what the total amount of money that's available for gambling writ large is. But I do, I do think it's larger than people think. All of that said, when I look through the meme coin carnage, I'm not unhappy. Right. You know, it's like it all of a sudden, you know, you start looking, okay, dogecoin is in a world of its own, right. But everything else is under 10 billion. And most of the meme coins that we've heard about, I mean you, you literally number, what is it? 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, there's only five meme coins over a billion dollars in market cap right now. Only five, what was that two weeks ago? Much bigger number. I Don't track it as much as so, but, you know, I know people who are touting me, oh, you should buy the dog coin that's under bitcoin dog, because it is much stronger fundamentals. I know the person who said this to me is watching this, or highly likely is watching this. I'm saying it with a straight face, actually on a relative basis. I thought bitcoin dog made a lot more sense than dog with hat and a few other things and whatever and bonk and whatnot. But I did not put a penny into it because I just. That's just not me. But, you know, it's down 75, 80% from its highs. And a lot of these things are. So when, when Mike talks about lopping off the zero, it's already happened.
- [34:13]
Mike
That's. That's just getting started. 56 trillion. If it does, remember there's 10.3 million Bitcoin wannabes. I know that you don't like that word, Scott, but they're lottery.
- [34:31]
Scott Melker
Exactly.
- [34:32]
Mike
So maybe 50 are good, but overall this space needs a massive purging. And it's just getting started. I mean, and it's just getting started.
- [34:39]
Dave
Let's. Okay, so let's just take that expression.
- [34:41]
James
Wait, wait, hold on. What? I think Scott was making the clarification that I, I agree with him. They're not bitcoin wannabes, they're lottery tickets. That's a huge clarification.
- [34:56]
Scott Melker
Slot machines.
- [34:57]
Mike
Yeah.
- [34:58]
Dave
Right. So my point was going to be that if you look at crypto, break it into three pieces. They are lottery tickets, which are most. There are technology platforms which have either defined use cases or could have defined use cases, which are many, but most of them are really, really early. Like Deepin. Like, I love the concept of Deepin, but most of it is, you know, kind of self, you know, self congratulatory sort sort of stuff that have real potential but haven't really gotten there yet. Now, I know I'm going to get arguments from the deep end folks, but whatever. And then, you know, there's real world asset stuff. There's also, there's platforms. And those platforms remind me more of the Internet stock circa 1996 than they do circa 1999, 2000. They just got the 2099 valuations despite being in the position where they were in 96. And then you have Bitcoin. And bitcoin is a completely separate thing that, that James and I will continue to say is different. And I group Ethereum in with those platforms. It will either be great or not. That to me is important. And that's why whenever you say bitcoin wannabes and do that, the fact that that is a mainstream narrative among boomers and among financial advisors is one of the reasons why bitcoin is still trading at a 90% discount, in my opinion. I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying you're not the only one to say this, but we haven't had a successful fork of bitcoin. Bitcoin. Well, we haven't had a successful fork of bitcoin ever, but we haven't had a fork of bitcoin in a very, very long time.
- [36:27]
Scott Melker
Yeah, I want to say one thing though, Dave, because I can't find it. And I've been looking. I think the fentanyl Canada stuff is bullshit that we're reading about on Twitter. I literally pulled it up from the official border patrol. It was less than 50 pounds from the northern border in all of 2024. No, no, no, I know, but 88% of fentanyl entering the United States comes to the Southwest.
- [36:48]
Dave
Sport. Ask Grok, as I did this before how much fentanyl.
- [36:56]
Scott Melker
I got it here on chat is which maybe something I don't know, but.
- [37:00]
Dave
By Canada, Bruce, in Canada, we have to argue it.
- [37:05]
Scott Melker
I'm just saying, dude, Trump, Trump is flexing. And I'm not going to say that's right or wrong, but like, I mean, he. In his last administration and in every administration. Listen, we know that a lot of our resources come from Canada, our cheap labor comes from Mexico, and we have a very nice symbiotic relationship of the three countries he wants to negotiate from position of power. In my opinion, I would not be surprised if those tariffs don't exist by tonight.
- [37:31]
Dave
But my point here is exactly that point, whether it's tonight or next week or whatever. But that's the point that I'm making. This is not about economics. That's really all that matters here from macro Monday point of view. But actually when you ask Grok or ask Chat GPT about fentanyl production in Canada, it is eye popping.
- [37:51]
Scott Melker
I'm just saying, like 10% on China and 25% on Canada does not rationally add up unless it's just some sort of.
- [37:58]
Dave
Well, the reason is because he thought they would back down immediately and didn't think even his friends in Canada would. Would do that. And so that's a miscalculation. So we'll see how it gets, how it goes.
- [38:06]
Mike
It's a retaliation issue now that you know, when the world's largest demand pool economy charges zero tariffs. They should just thank you. And they're not. And now they're trying to do retaliatory tariffs, which means, okay, well, that's not going to hurt us too bad. I mean, it's only 10% of our GDP versus Germany's. 50% of their GDP is exports. And second year in a row, potentially a third year now, they're going to have negative. I mean, this is a global situation. The US Is just putting a hard stop on it. So yes, you blame it on fentanyl, but just look at the math. And that is, I like to point out our total trade deficit is around a trillion. So, okay, 20% of that's 200 billion. Right now we're down five times that in the stock market capsulation. That's only one day. That to me is all that matters. I mean, it's all that matters. I think the Fed gets it too. They can't keep cutting rates because the stock market took off and inflation ticked up. It's just this wealth effect machine is being pushed back and cryptos are at the complete leading edge of that.
- [39:02]
Dave
Which is exactly why I agree. Well, I agree with everything. But the leading edge thing. Leading edge thing is the gamblers got, got, got smacked. But the. But this is a president who obsesses about the stock market. This is a Fed who knows everything you just said to be true. And so if this continues for whatever reason, and I actually think it's going to resolve itself much faster than people expect, which is kind of the whole point of my diatribe, remember? Oh, I can't do it this way.
- [39:32]
Mike
Here we go.
- [39:35]
Dave
You know, my diatribe is that, that, that if in fact it doesn't resolve, then you will end up with more liquidity sloshing into the market. Which is why a bunch of bitcoiners this weekend, you're like, listen, guys, I don't know about your favorite, you know, you know, whatever meme coin, but bitcoin is going to be the ultimate beneficiary of this.
- [39:53]
Mike
The liquidity is based on one thing and it's, I know, it's James turn. The stock market has to go up if it goes down. I just remember this. In trading pits, you just, just wipe out wealth. And we're seeing that. And it's not people making money getting short. You just take that wealth and it goes, it goes away. It goes poof. The word you used earlier, isn't there.
- [40:09]
Scott Melker
An angle here of him forcing? I, I talked to Arthur Hayes about this actually there is the angle. Yeah, like, like just throw these tariffs up, force the market down, make Powell cut and everybody forgets about this in three months and life goes on.
- [40:24]
James
That's the game theory that he's thinking three steps ahead and could, I mean, honestly, here's the thing about Trump is that he's willing to go there and he's willing to take those risks to do something like that because, you know, reckless is not really the word, but he's willing to be a little bit, you know, less metered with his approach. Let's say he's willing to do what.
- [40:49]
Dave
He thinks is, is necessary to do the things that he promised. He is hyper focused on promises made, promises delivered. It's refreshing if you really think about it. We'd be much more likely.
- [41:01]
Scott Melker
But it also means that, it also means that like the stock market has to be up in three months or my presidency is a failure, or bitcoin has to be at 150,000 in my first 100 days. That's not what he doesn't want. If he's willing to.
- [41:14]
James
Yeah, but what he doesn't want, Scott, is for it to be six, nine, you know, 12 months down the road. Then the stock got to do it now.
- [41:22]
Scott Melker
We've got to do it now. There's because, because then he's going to.
- [41:24]
James
Get blamed for it. But if it happens now, he's like, it was the first month of my presidency. Like, yeah.
- [41:30]
Scott Melker
And by the way, by the way, if this happens in 20 months, the Senate flips and Elizabeth Warren is the chair of the finance.
- [41:38]
Dave
That's exactly right. So get the pain out of the way now and figure out your geopolitical goals and go for it. I mean, you know, there, there are all sorts of cross currents here. Right. You know, we haven't talked about, you know, what all, all those are, but they are massively bullish cross currents from a bitcoin perspective.
- [41:56]
James
Yes.
- [41:56]
Dave
And for a crypto entrepreneurial expect perspective, not necessarily meme coins, but utility perspective. We are going to get faster. We heard that. You know, there are people saying we are going to get fast track legislation. We are going to get this up because there are Democrats who are on board with some of it and they want to have influence into what it goes. I mean, we'll be talking about that next week. This week is too early. But this is in a very interesting backdrop. This isn't amidst a global pandemic. This isn't amidst a global sell off. Right. I mean, 2% in the NASDAQ I mean, who really cares, right? You know, it's not that big of a deal, right? You know, but Meanwhile, you're at 25, 30% on your average crypto asset.
- [42:37]
Scott Melker
But is that why, Is that why it's all bouncing? Because, like, the weekend was the time to panic. And by the time it was Monday, actually, people realized maybe it's not going to be such a big deal. And now we're, you know, Bitcoin's back at 96.
- [42:48]
Dave
Well, it's exactly what I said would happen. I mean, I don't know. What do you want? What do you want me to say, Scott? Bitcoin's in a range between 92 and 102. Until we get some resolution of the things that we've talked about, right? Until we see, you know, some of the strategic reserve talk go around, until we see what the legislation is going to be. Paul Atkins has yet to even come up for confirmation, yet much less understanding when banks are going to be allowed to offer crypto trading services. These are all the, the tailwinds haven't happened. I mean, people in the market like to anticipate stuff, but until they happen, people, you know, look, it is what it is and you know, don't, don't, don't expect anything otherwise. I mean, look, it's, there's a lot going on and we're in the middle of it, and when it happens, I mean, there was a theory this weekend, and the other thing that's true is, remember, until we fix Operation Chokepoint and we know that we're not going to do it anymore, but try to get fiat, try to get dollars into your spot crypto accounts on the weekend. Just try and tell me how often and tell me how long it takes. Just try to get dollars. It, you know, it's, it's, it's a much more painful process. In a year, that process is going to be much simpler. But right now you have. If it's spotlight buying, it is way easier to push down the market on the weekend than it is any other time. And so that's why we see this sort of thing. And so it's. There was another really good thread. James, did you see this one from a former Jane street trader?
- [44:22]
James
Which one?
- [44:22]
Dave
The Vincent Van Gogh one. I'll have to go back and find it. The problem is when you're on vacation, I'm doing it on my phone, I can't do it. But he talked about how, when they sensed the opportunity to be able to make profits trading by flushing it, causing Liquidation cascades on the weekend because people couldn't get money into the spot market. That it was, they, they felt it was basically free money and that's what they were able to do. And so when you get these sorts of weekends, you expect that. That's why we tell everyone. Scott's told people, I've told people. You've told people. If you're going to be on the long side, put in stink bids now. Stink bids? Yeah, depending on where you were.
- [44:57]
Scott Melker
I bought like, listen, I'm not going to say this was the most eloquent description of why I did it, but I tweeted yesterday, right at the bottom, bought some bitcoin in eth. Because fuck this. Yes, I know that that's not the most eloquent reason, but when I'm seeing bitcoin sitting at 91,000, Ethereum's at 2100 when I was willing to buy it at 3,000 a couple days before, I still believe long term stink bits.
- [45:19]
Dave
Right. But the reason is the liquidity bets. Now in the long run, Mike could end up being right and a lot of these things could go to zero. Yeah, okay, fine. But in the short run, it's not people's overall view haven't changed. It's a question of monetary allocation, ability to get the money in there. But in the derivative market, those bets are placed.
- [45:39]
James
Guys, we haven't even, guys, we have not even touched on Powell from last week and.
- [45:45]
Dave
Yeah, that's right.
- [45:45]
James
You know, like we, oh my God.
- [45:47]
Scott Melker
That was last week. I thought that was four years ago.
- [45:50]
James
Like we haven't even touched on, like there's so much going on in, in these markets.
- [45:54]
Dave
So.
- [45:54]
James
But we, we do need to unpack the fact that Powell stood up there and flat out lied. And Mike, I'd like to hear your take on this because he, I think he flat out lied that when he said that, oh, bank reserves are abundant. And he said it twice, not once but twice. And I'm like, I'm looking at the numbers, I'm looking back to the repo crisis of 2019 and thinking he's out of his mind. I mean there's, with all that, that the treasury did and with, with Janet Yellen playing the shell game of moving money to the front end of the curve. Curve, right? So now you've got $10 trillion of debt that's coming due. You know, you've got 7 trillion just this year or more just because everything was pushed the front of the curve on T bills and you have to move out now. On the, on the further end of the curve, there's investment. Knows it. He knows he has to. He said it. He's got him. He's got to start issuing debt that has coupons. And so now you're going to be in a position that there's. The bank reserves only have about, I'd say, $300 billion, $400 billion left before they get to the, the level that. That makes the Fed extremely nervous because of exactly what happened last time. They're not really doing QT right now. They're letting some bonds roll off their books and mature and not replacing them, but that they're going to turn around and do QE again once that happens. And so where. How long do we have until that happens? And Doge can only do so much to prevent that from, from happening in the next few months. So where are we, you know, because you can't issue new debt while we don't have a debt ceiling or we have a debt ceiling that we're already above. Like, we're coming down into, like a corridor here that people. It just seems to me that Wall street is kind of ignoring, ignoring this, this stop sign that we're, that we're about to blow right through.
- [47:55]
Scott Melker
Mike.
- [47:58]
Mike
The bottom line, I think, for Powell is he's done easing. I mean, the bank reserves, you know, that much better, and he's done easing until something makes him ease. And even Trump said in his interview last night, he said he thought he did the right thing by not doing anything. So to me, that's the key thing. What sparks the next ease either. Unemployment shooting up, up. That's the number one thing. Stock market dropping is the number one thing. If it drops hard, but otherwise, we're done. We're stuck. No more liquidity for you.
- [48:26]
James
I don't think, I don't think we're gonna. I don't think he's gonna ease. What I think is gonna happen is we're gonna get to a point where there's something that's disruptive in the, in the bond market. And Mike, you, you do you, you live this. You know what I'm talking about. When there's something disrupted in the bond market, it. Yeah, they're not going to lower rates. They're going to turn around in QE in an instant, just like they did in 2019.
- [48:47]
Mike
That's part of the reason I'm still and completely wrong for a little while. That's why I still think the next big trades at U S Treasury, long bond, obviously, I've been Trading for decades and this is probably my worst trade so far. But anytime I've been thrown down the mat this long usually just I get stopped out and it goes the right way. Yeah, they gotta buy them. But the key thing is we have the first they're gonna.
- [49:06]
James
They're gonna have to yield correct control at some point.
- [49:09]
Mike
But what's the trigger to get there? The trigger that gets there usually is risk assets going down, some issues, Vix going up, gold having some issue in the meantime. Bitcoin getting hammered because it's still risk assets. I mean this is the trade we're going to look for. That's when you want to start look to buy these highly spec the digital assets. Not when it first went 100,000 and things like Dave said the market I agree with him. But all market price that all in we get it. Yeah Bitcoin reserve, all that great stuff. Price in the markets look ahead. Especially things that trade three times the volatility S&P 500. So to me this is where we are now. But that's the macro big picture. It's things we warned about last year. Okay, so fed a few ease with the stock market and the tear. What does that mean? Stock market is up. Creates more inflation. They've learned that lesson again. Now what do we do? We're just completely stuck and we're at such high levels and we're optimism so extreme. Just the pendulum swing back a little bit.
- [49:58]
Dave
That'll be another thing I want to back up James.
- [50:01]
James
Wait, wait. Another thing that caused so much inflation was $2.6 trillion seeking a reverse repo facility that is basically money market funds that people were just collecting 4 to 5% interest on for years. Like that's. And they're just sitting on that then taking that and adding to their discretionary income expenses. You know. So they're just like well I've got this extra money I didn't have before. I'm making all this money in interest. I'm just going to go spend it. That is one thing that was happening that you know it's not happening now.
- [50:31]
Dave
So the point that like watching you know the last interchange between James and Mike is you guys are literally talking two different languages. James is basically doesn't give a excuse my language but doesn't give a fuck about the stock market. You're talking about the bond market and the liquidity plumbing of the world and Mike's talking about the stock market. And I think you guys are talking past each other symptomatic of the bond Market. No, no, I understand all that matters very, very, very specifically. Yeah, see, I don't. I think that.
- [51:01]
Mike
Oh, so why are buying yields down today? Why? Bond deal. The stock market's not 1.3. That's three reasons why bond yields are down.
- [51:07]
Dave
The reason is because people don't believe that it's actually real. It's that every time you have a sell off in the stock market where the bond yields don't go up means people aren't selling the U.S. they're not betting against the U.S. winning. They're saying, okay, let's take some money off the table in the stock market market. But the bond investors are saying everything's fine, it's not a problem. The issue that James is pointing out is what happens when it isn't fine and we have to go to qe. I love the phrasing. The Wall Street Journal has an article which is hysterical and the title is Wall street is Nervous about Scott Besant's Borrowing Plans. And it says new Treasury Secretary has criticized a borrowing strategy that has helped calm markets. And what James is saying is that strategy that has calmed the market has been kicking the can down the road by continuing to borrow, it could cause.
- [51:56]
James
It to blow up. Exactly.
- [51:58]
Dave
And so what the Wall Street Journal is basically saying is, come on man, don't, don't bring this to a head. And what Vicente is basically saying is like, listen, you know, this is not sustainable. We got to get ourselves on a sustainable path. And maybe I've been under, I am under orders that if I'm going to do something that's going to cause short term pain, that we can get past, do it now. And so that short term pain, what James is suggesting and I think is entirely possible is going to ultimately trigger, going to need to be ameliorated by some form of QE and increased liquidity spigot in order to get over the hump, to get us back on the hype. And if that is true, that worldview, you could believe it or not. But if that worldview happens, I don't know what that does to the stock market. I do think that ultimately that liquidity will ultimately end up in risk assets or end up in things like Bitcoin and gold more than it will end up in, you know, NASDAQ or in crypto. But I do think that liquidity is coming. And that's the point. It may not be true. I mean you can, you can debate it or not, but that's the argument exactly.
- [53:02]
James
Liquidity is coming. So then the Point of all that to your, to your point, Mike, is that liquidity will catch up to the stock market at some point here. The stock market may meet, you know, mean reverse for a minute, but it's going to be a minute.
- [53:17]
Mike
So that's my point. I agree with you. Liquidity is coming, but it's the first iteration is the stock market has to make it come, it has to go down, unfortunately. And it's probably going to be led by these massive 10 million of cryptos that have massive speculation, ease of entry, excess of supply. The rules of economics do not point well to cryptos. Maybe first, you know, an index attracts like the top 10 or 20, that'll probably do okay. But overall, you lot, the 0 off the value is the way it's going to happen. It's, I remember seeing this in 99 and 07. It's worse now than ever because the stock market valuation is more expensive now and we've lifted it up so high. And also we, now we have what's happened now we have this new president. It's going to make everything better. It's just the psychology is so poor and it's like you came out of Davos. Every European said those, those Americans are way too optimistic.
- [54:08]
Dave
So I, I want to say something because I don't say it very often on what you just said. I am in 100 agreement with, in 2000, all the OTC stocks that were trading, you know, I'm not talking about nasdaq. I mean the otc, the real, real, the shitty stuff and all the small caps tech stocks that went like, you know, oh, oh, sorry, I shouldn't make that. I think people are going to call me a Nazi, but basically, you know, up into the right. And yes, I, I said that with the appropriate amount of disdain. The, the fact is everything that went up into the right that were these small companies didn't make any sense. Most of them, the vast majority of them went to zero. I think the vast majority of the cryptos that have the cryptocurrencies that have nothing behind them or you know, are going to go to zero. Yes, I do think that that will be true. I don't know whether that will be this cycle, but I think that that has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin and very little to do with projects that make sense. And some of those projects that make sense might be ones that are meme oriented that have huge communities that are bridging out. I mean like, I don't think you could look at a pudgy Penguin and consider it the same thing as Fartcoin. I'm sorry, I just don't think you can. Right. You know, you have something that has cartoons and this and that. You know, at the end of the day there are differences. But if you, you pick a number, if you pick anything beyond, you know, if you say are there going to be 500 crypto assets that are going to perform? And I think that's a high number. I think it's lower than that. You say there are 500 of the current crypto assets are going to perform and in five years we're going to look back. I'd say everything beyond that is probably zero or zero adjacent. Now, is that a. I said the same thing in the ICO boom, by the way, in 2017, and I turned out to be right. And people get mad at me for that. But it's the truth. You know, it really is a question of that. That however, has nothing to do with what we were on the show talking about, which is Bitcoin and bigger and the bigger assets that are here, just like the bigger assets in the stock market, like Nvidia. I mean, Mike, what do you think? Let's put you on the spot here. Nvidia. Do you think it gets cut in half from here, 25% down from here?
- [56:10]
Mike
What do you think I was looking at this weekend? Unfortunately, I have to admit, I got too involved this weekend. As you look at the stock market cap and Nvidia, it's about 2.9 trillion. It back a couple years ago. Was it 20, 21? It was the same as Bitcoin around 2. I'm just looking at it. I can try to share that chart if you want to see it, but it's in the looks like Nvidia can easily go back down to 2 trillion. Here it is 2 and point 8 or so. I just overlay with the price 114. Why can't it go back to 80? It's nothing. It's just where it was at beginning of last year. And that means what does happen? Maybe it catches up. The same market cap is Bitcoin. Last time was around the same was they were both around half a trillion. The key thing the lessons of Jeff Booth, the price of tomorrow big, big coiner is don't underestimate technology in the massive deflationary forces specifically for companies that have a lot of earnings. Nvidia, what did we see from Deekseek recently? They're a target for competition and I just look at as a non stock Tech, commodity. The issue with commodities, the lesson you really earn commodities is commodities go down because they went up and go up because they went down because elasticity, with the exception of gold. The thing is the stock market just looks like on a much longer scale and when it does eventually really go down, it goes down and stays down for a long time. We haven't had that since 2011. We had a little bit.
- [57:38]
Scott Melker
They were expecting a bigger. Honestly, like if the theory is, you know, force the stock market down early, get the pain over with Fed cuts.
- [57:46]
Mike
There you go.
- [57:47]
Scott Melker
Yeah. Trump's gotta be looking at this and being like, dammit, why is the stock market only down 1%, 5% when I just proposed 25% tariffs on our best friends.
- [57:56]
Mike
He keeps saying pain, we have to have some pain. Just look at Canadian tenures today they're down 17 basis points. Those are the whole world's tilting towards recession before Trump is elected. Now these tariffs, I mean this is making 1930 look like 60 stuff.
- [58:11]
Scott Melker
I mean, if you want to know where the pain was, it's because Trump now controls crypto after, you know, everybody watching World Liberty Financial launching Trump Coin. I mean, I don't know that I've ever seen a wick like that on bitcoin dominance. Just so you guys know, over the weekend bitcoin dominance went from, and this is with stablecoins. So you take stable coins out, it's much worse by the way, for 58 to as high as almost 65% a matter of two days. I mean, if you want it. This just in my mind speaks to the risk off trade in crypto not being bitcoin. Now it's all coins.
- [58:43]
Dave
You know, all I gotta say is one other indicator that, that I look at pretty consistently and it could be ephemeral. But watch. Tether to usdt. What's tether to USD? Tether to USD. During all the, the whole bear market that we've seen, bear market, the whole downtrend has been for, for very short blips, has been below par. It's now above par, meaning that people are scrambling today to put money into, into the crypto market. That's what that means. And if that stays long for a long time, you will that to me, if that stays for a little bit, expect a pretty savage bounce because the supply will, you know, the, the people who are cleaning their books will be done and then that's where you go. So just watch that right now it's still this, it's only a very, it's a nine basis point Premium, which is nothing. Three zeros and a seven, three zeros and a nine. But if it stays like that, that's a big deal. So for those technical people out there who are watching, watch the tether dollar because it's telling you where real money flows are going outside of the us.
- [59:47]
Scott Melker
I made the mistake while we were talking because I have ADD of tweeting that chart with the 42 pounds of fentanyl from Canada.
- [59:54]
Dave
Oh, boy.
- [59:55]
Scott Melker
And I've been informed repeatedly that 42 pounds of fentanyl will kill 9.5 million people. So while looking at it, I just want to look at some data just to let you guys know what we deal with when trying to get facts on Twitter. That was 42 of £29,000 seized. And yes, in lethal doses, 42 pounds could kill 9.5 million people. But we had 107,000 overdose deaths deaths among all drugs in the United States last year. And if you think that every single dose that comes in from Canada is going to kill somebody, we would have killed the entire population of the planet with £29,000 a thousand times over.
- [60:34]
Dave
Type into chat, GPT or Grok. How much fentanyl is produced in Canada?
- [60:39]
Scott Melker
I'm sure a lot of it is produced. That's what I'm just saying.
- [60:41]
Dave
That's the big deal. The conclusion is, given these points, it's clear that Canada has become a significant producer of fentanyl production capacity in the millions, if not tens of millions of doses annually.
- [60:53]
Scott Melker
Apparently, if you import 42 pounds, it's going to kill the entire United States.
- [60:57]
Dave
No, no, I get the people on Twitter are nuts, but it is actually a big problem and it is why. It is the reason behind what happened. And then the adults that are sitting in the rooms that are actually talking are talking about it and the media isn't, and we'll see how this goes. But there is quite a bit. It's mostly concentrating in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. And it's. Let's. It's factual. I'm not making it up. I'm reading it to you. I'm just telling you.
- [61:26]
James
Oh, you went mute. Scott.
- [61:31]
Dave
Scott, you're muted. We see you, but we see your mouth moving.
- [61:38]
James
You're.
- [61:39]
Mike
You're.
- [61:39]
James
You're off, buddy.
- [61:41]
Dave
Can you hear me, Mike? Can you hear James now?
- [61:43]
Mike
I can hear you. I think something happened with Scott. We're kind of over time, so maybe we should call the day. Scott's off, guys.
- [61:54]
Dave
Always a pleasure, guys.
- [61:55]
James
All right, guys, Next time.
- [61:58]
Scott Melker
Cheers. Anyway, so I said blame Canada, like South park and the Canadian, and Trudeau muted me up there, man. All right, guys, that's how we're gonna end the show right now. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Back next Monday. See you guys later. Bye.
- [62:21]
Dave
Cheers. Let's do.