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- [00:00]
A
Hey all, just a heads up that this episode was live streamed Monday at 4:30pm Eastern. Bits and bips will be live streamed every week going forward now on Mondays at that time after the markets close, be sure to join us on X or YouTube.
- [00:14]
B
We're probably not going to see a big pivot from the White House on tariffs in the next week. So for me the song remains the same. You're supposed to be avoiding assets that are at the center of the storm, which are really large cap us equities and favoring assets that benefit from this sort of stagflationary environment. And for me, that is scarce commodities, gold, copper and most importantly bitcoin. I mean, for me this is really bitcoin's moment. And it's exactly the type of reason why macro people get involved in the bitcoin trade is because we are seeing a structural shift from the dollar and I think it will have big medium term positives for bitcoin.
- [00:58]
C
Hi everyone. Welcome to Bits and Bits exploring how crypto macro collide one basis point at a time. I'm your host today, Stephen Ehrlich, High scribe of the Unchained Kingdom. And I'm here with Alex Kruger Kruger Makaro of House Asgard, Protector of the Realm, Ram Alawalia, Maester of Wealth, leader of Lumita. And our special guest, Zach Handel, truth seeker of the asset realms at Grayscale Investments. Welcome everybody. And Zach, why don't you just take a minute to introduce yourself.
- [01:30]
B
Thanks Stephen. Great to be on the show. Zach Pandel, head of research at Grayscale. I've been a Markets analyst for 20 years. Prior to full time crypto, I was an economist and macro strategist on Wall street covering all masses. And I discovered Bitcoin and became convinced that of all the macro assets out there, bitcoin had the most compelling outlook of anything on the board. And I just needed to be fully in crypto for the rest of my career, so abandoned the full time macro and joined Gray Scout. And it turns out fortunately that a bit of macro knowledge is very helpful for navigating a crypto market. So delighted to talk about all that with the group today.
- [02:17]
C
Yeah, you're officially now one of us. So we're here to discuss the latest stories in the worlds of crypto and macro. Just remember that nothing we say is investment advice. Check unchained.com.
- [02:31]
D
Alice were right, that isn't best. Sorry Alice, we're right, that isn't best advice.
- [02:37]
E
You can give us full credit at that point.
- [02:40]
C
Okay. But before we begin. Let's just take a quick minute to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible.
- [02:46]
A
Crypto moves fast. It's why Bitwise launched the weekly CIO Memo, a jargon free summary of what's moving crypto markets written by one of the best in the business, CIO, Matt Hogan. Get up to speed in five minutes or less. Check it out at bitwiseinvestments.com Ciomemo Carefully consider the extreme risks associated with crypto before investing big news Unchained just launched a brand new newsletter, Bits and bips. Just like this podcast, it's all about how crypto and macro collide one basis point at a time. Get expert analysis, market insights and the biggest stories shaping both worlds. Straight to your inbox. Subscribe now for free at bitsandbips.be HYVE.com that's bitsandbips.beehive.com find the link in the.
- [03:35]
C
Show Notes okay, so guys, what are we going to talk about today? It's not too much is going on, but for me it comes down to the question will he or won't he? And I would imagine most people listening know what I'm talking about. Will Donald Trump fire or try to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell? Rahm, why don't we start with you? What are your thoughts?
- [04:01]
E
I don't think he will. I think he wants to. And the reporting over the weekend is that Besant and the presumptive replacement for Powell, Kevin Warsh, formerly served on the fomc, former Morgan Stanley investment banker has also counseled Trump to to not replace Powell. And the reason for that would be that the impact to equity markets would be terrible. I'm going to share my screen here showing the last time Trump had a showdown with Powell at the OK Corral wasn't really a showdown. It's really Powell taking a beating and Trump saying what he says. Right? But this is from Q4 2018. The market bottomed on the day that it was reported that Trump wants to fire the Fed chair and this caused a lot of panic. Now this is also during Trump Trade War 1.0. Trump chose not to fire Powell. And then also on December 24, which is right around that low, he said it's time to buy stocks like he did about two weeks ago and then we're off to the races. So the market has memory around that trauma. And yeah, I think it would not be a good idea to fire Powell. One of the hardest parts of modern civilization is how do you have sound money? And one of the Basic ideas we have is that you should separate monetary policy from the executive branch. There needs to be some oversight. We have that, but we'd be going a step backwards and it would undermine confidence the dollar would drop dollar breach to new lows today on a multi year basis. The 10 year went up on a day the markets went down, gold is going up, the risk assets are going down. And the sell off today in part, in a significant part was because of the threat to Powell.
- [05:56]
C
Okay, Zach, what do you think about this? I mean it's really interesting in a way. Trump nominated Powell during his first term, Biden re nominated him again. And obviously Donald Trump is having to some degree buyer's remorse. But he's also been very unconstrained in the second term compared to the first. Do you think he's going to stop short in trying to remove the Fed chair?
- [06:23]
B
Look, I think he probably will not try to follow fire Powell. But the fact that we are even talking about it is what's important for markets. The White House is testing institutional constraints on the executive and on immigration, on tariffs. And this is going to have medium term implications for the US economy in terms of growth and inflation, in terms of the dollar and in terms of asset markets. And so, you know, I'm not sure what is going to happen. I think we are going to find some of these constraints on aspects of policy and probably they won't go all the way towards threatening the role of the, of the Fed chair. But I think markets can see the writing on the wall that US institutions are changing, that this is going to have implications for the asset preferences for some of the world's largest investors. And you're going to start seeing portfolios shift away from dollar based assets into other things. And one of those other things is the largest asset in our market, Bitcoin. You know, a scarce thing that investors are going interested in when you have challenges like this, trade wars, threats to central bank independence. And this is why Bitcoin is basically outshining every other asset except gold. You know, it is trading only behind gold in this recent period and I think that's remarkably positive for, for the outlook.
- [07:56]
C
So Alex, I want to get your thoughts on this too, but maybe just expand out the conversation a little more. I mean Trump and Powell are not necessarily on opposite sides. I mean the Fed's dual mandate is support high employment and low inflation. But from my readings of Powell's statements, he's of the belief that even if there's a one time massive increase in prices as a result of the tariffs that doesn't necessarily lead to ongoing inflation, which is why the Fed is being somewhat hesitant in lowering rates right now. So I guess what I would like to ask you and then anyone else that wants to jump in, do you think that's accurate? I mean, Powell and probably every other head of a central bank was wrong during COVID about the transitory inflation or their expectations of transitory inflation. So what do you think about that?
- [08:56]
D
I don't think so. A few thoughts. The first one is before going on to that Trump can't fire Powell.
- [09:06]
B
By.
- [09:06]
D
Law unless he has cause. The problem there is that cause is subjective. Who determines cause? Well, Trump determines cause, but then that has to go through the courts and the judges are mostly Republican. So there is a very small probability scenario where actually he could actually make it happen. And making that happen would be it's the end game. It's the end game for financial markets as we know them. This is something that many people don't understand is how important an independent central bank is for well functioning markets. A central bank that does countercyclical policy to balance what the government, the executive power is doing. If you lose that independence, you end up being eventually, you increase the probability very significantly of eventually the president controlling the central bank and becoming what Argentina is being, for example, for decades, until Milei basically use the central bank to print the shit out of, well, the dollar in this case, to finance whatever you want and you end up in an economy with booms and busts and the trust in the system is lost. So that's one thing is like, the thing is he can't really. But there is a minimum, there's a very tiny scenario where he could, and that would be so bad that that's what we're seeing, the disaster we're seeing today as continuation of what of the disaster we had already been seeing.
- [10:54]
B
I guess I think of it a little bit more as a continuum that the central bank is not one day independent and one day dependent on the White House, but it's kind of a continuum that if you look in the history in the 1970s, in the 1940s, there's different degrees of Federal Reserve independence during its history. And I think even a little bit of threatening of the Fed's independence has implications for the shape of the yield curve, for the value of the dollar. And I think that that's what we are seeing. I don't know that we're going to jump right from the US To Argentina or Zimbabwe, but we can move down the Path of falling Fed independence. And in an environment when you have stagflationary shocks, that immediately becomes important for markets. And so if you didn't have the risk of inflation, this question on Fed independence wouldn't be as important. But the combination of the stagflationary shock and moving down this continuum of pressuring Fed independence is driving asset markets today. And I think that will continue even if we don't get all the way to fully putting the Treasury Secretary back on the FOMC as it was before the early 1950s.
- [12:07]
C
Rahm, you have something you'd like to add?
- [12:08]
E
Yeah, if you can share the screen here. This shows just how the Fed is in a bind.
- [12:12]
D
Right?
- [12:13]
E
The Fed has a dual mandate on maximize employment and deliver stable prices, control inflation. This is five year and one year ahead. Consumer expected inflation rates. By the way, consumers are way off here. We are experiencing disinflation. Yet right now, yes, there's a tariff fall coming. Yes, it's inflationary, but it actually hasn't hit yet. So consumers inflation expectations are high and the Fed needs to keep those expectations anchored because there is a reflexive effect. If consumers and small businesses expect higher inflation, then they'll demand higher wages, they'll pass on higher prices. And incidentally, you see the same kind of data in manufacturing services surveys or manufacturing surveys around prices paid and prices received. So this is what puts the Fed in a bind. Now, the Fed last year, you know, they, they largely kept rates higher for longer. They didn't cut, they didn't bow to political pressure. They did the 50 bips cut in September. Trump actually gave kudos to Powell for not, you know, interfering. I, I do think they have to keep rates high through May and not come in May unless you see an NFP print of 50k or lower dislocation in the May jobs print. The other consideration is that the potential replacement nominee is Kevin Warsh. Kevin was on the wrong side of history. If you look at his calls in 2008, in September, he was saying, look, inflation's too high. We should not be cutting rates. Kevin could have taken what the Great Recession was into something far deeper and far worse. And look, I've been very critical about the Fed. The Fed is upside down on its balance sheet. QE was an unnecessary monetary experiment, buying MBS bank supervision choke 1.0. Those are all mistakes and overreaches. Denying Caitlin Long a banking charter and making up a reason for it. There's a lot of criticism you can say about the Fed, but on Powell specifically, I'm Actually giving Powell better, a better grade. I think he's held off a lot of the political pressure around him and is trying to make an accurate decision with a lot of noise and policy shocks in the system.
- [14:43]
C
Yeah, he's certainly acting like somebody that doesn't expect to be leaving before his term ends. And Rahm, that chart you brought up reminded me of an interesting article that I read in the Wall Street Journal today. The title was something like Trump is Everywhere but in the Economic Data. And it really kind of just pointed out that this big divergence between the hard and the soft data that we're seeing so far, and a big part of the article, big point of the article, is really just that there's lags in certain things, like people were upfronting inventory so they could get ahead of the tariffs and maybe some people were buying washing machines and other items before the tariffs and that might all get flushed out. Plus with all the the Fed layoffs that are still on payroll, that's going to roll out later in the year. But it really comes down to that dilemma that the Fed is really trying to understand, like they're trying to thread the needle between the hard data and what consumers are expecting to happen. And just given Trump's proclivity to change his mind sometimes within a single day on tariffs, it's difficult to do that. And maybe Powell and the rest of the fomc, they don't want to unload the chamber until they really feel like they have to. And perhaps it is prudent to wait a little bit.
- [15:53]
D
Let's move on before Stephen, sorry before we go on, because that was your initial question, I do want to comment on that. I agree exactly what you said and in fact what you just said right now. And the point is that Powell cannot would be responsible for him to actually for him and the board to lower rates before seeing the pass through and before seeing exactly what measures are going to be out there. And the thing is, tariffs can turn into permanent inflationary pressure if there is retaliatory waves, which we don't yet know if they're going to happen. So he's forced to wait by definition. And him and the entire board been saying this like broken clocks since day zero, day minus 30. They've been saying this over and over again. So Trump and his administration and Bessa knew exactly what they were getting into, that these guys would not yield because they can't or even if you disagree, doesn't matter. The point is they firmly believe that they can't yield. Therefore they can't. And there's been this whole massive narrative in financial markets about how they should yield. But it's a made up narrative that started in the last few months. It's like they told us they can't, so we move. And by the way, if they could, I think actually wouldn't really fix much.
- [17:23]
E
Right. As you pointed out, you've got weak soft data, but you haven't seen yet weak hard data. Any survey is at recessionary levels by the way, and CEOs are pulling back on Capex. You're seeing the Challenger announcement saying that there will be future layoffs. So if there's no pivot, you're going to see that. You know, you're seeing small businesses that import from China get acquired from their China suppliers because it turns out that if Hermes has a 10x markup on a handbag made in China or Louis Vuitton, then If you sell DTC via America, even with a 245% tariff, you can make margin. But I think zooming out, what you have is a confidence shock that's shown up in the soft data and now you have a confidence shock around confidence in US dollar, in US rates. And that's why you've seen this rotation out of US dollar denominated assets. It's extraordinarily rare to see the S P and NASDAQ down 2 and 3 points today, plus and the 10 year widen. It's extraordinarily rare. What's happening is people in Europe and Asia are rotating out because they have a confidence shock. There's a dent in the American brand and part of that's driven by the attack and power, part of that's driven by tariffs.
- [18:50]
D
Ron, let me say there, it's not just Europeans and nations, it's Americans and Argentinians and absolutely everybody. Because at the end is we're not here to beneficiary to do charity to the US government. We're here to make money and it's an investment in Treasuries. And if everybody, if we have expectations that others are going to be selling well, we sell as soon as possible.
- [19:16]
B
Right?
- [19:17]
E
I mean gold and Bitcoin are the safety trade now, not the ten year. That's a change in behavior.
- [19:21]
D
Yeah. And by the way, the long end, the 30 year is getting absolutely demolished. I mean what's happening on the 10 is nothing with the long end of the curve.
- [19:32]
C
I want to get into sort of the rolling away from traditional safe havens because that's a really important part of this conversation. But first, just to maybe tie the knot on what we were discussing right now, I'd like each of you to maybe just share what you expect to happen. I think we're all in agreement that Trump is not going to try to fire Powell or he's not going to be able to successfully do that. With that assumption, what happens the rest of the week? Assuming that there's not another big variable like a trade agreement being announced with Japan or South Korea or he decides to unwind the tariffs on China, I mean the S and P, I mean all the things you mentioned, Rahm, they're all down two plus percent. Everyone's seeing red. Are we going to see some sort of relief rally tomorrow when people come to the census and realize that Trump is not going to do this? Or even if he does, he won't be able to do it for months because this is going to have to go through the courts or in a very non financial advice type of way because that's not what we do here. What happens? How should traders, how should investors try.
- [20:39]
E
To position themselves if Trump tries to fire Powell? You're going to get incredible volatility and it'll be litigated in the court system.
- [20:46]
C
Yeah.
- [20:47]
E
That means multiple news events spanning multiple months. That means more volatility.
- [20:55]
C
Right. I think that's, that's pretty self explanatory. Assuming he doesn't.
- [21:00]
E
Suppose that doesn't happen. Suppose that doesn't happen. Then, then there are two stories. There's the tariff story and then gross scare slash recession story. And what we saw over the weekend is Japan walked away. Eurozone doesn't seem inclined to get a deal done. And my hypothesis is that you've got the finance ministers on a metaphorical signal chat saying, gee, the US just imposed the largest sales tax in American history on Americans and now they want to do a deal and they're asking for an ask. I mean the story was that the Japanese finance minister came to the table and Luton et core is representing the US said what is your offer? And they said, you guys put these tariffs, taxes on yourself and what's your ask? What's your ask? And so they went home and you know, China, you know this, this is a government that takes a multi decade view. They take the long view, Japan takes the long view. They're, they're not in a rush to cut a deal. And my read of this might be wrong is that they are forcing Trump to pay a high political price because none of them are getting a deal done. Even Mexico, who was in Trump's corner. And Trump said he's got a great relations with the Prime Minister. They also walk back some comments. Eurozone leaders are, are making overtures to China. There's a conference in Slovakia. Even the UK who the US Has a special relationship with, hasn't leaned in. And you know, Besson's idea, this was floated out there last week. Besson had an idea to isolate China, build a wall around China, which I think is a fantastic idea. That's a fantastic idea. Unite the world around China for the bad behavior. That's, that's not getting traction because there's, there are different factions in the, in the Trump regime. So, you know, Trump is a price setter and a term setter. He can end this whenever he wants. What is the face saving exit? What does that look like? It could be, hey guys, we're doing 10% across the board tariffs. That could do it. He's meeting with Walmart, Costco and big retailers imminently in a few days. They obviously import a lot from China and what they're all going to say is, hey, these tariffs have to go, otherwise they have to pass prices on to consumers. Remember what Trump told the auto makers, he told GM and Chrysler 4 don't raise prices even with an 8% margin. They have a 25% tariff hitting the bottom line. So he's getting an earful. He has to pivot. So we'll see though. Like we, we have to make a decision on Trump's read of the situation. Unfortunately, no one can. You just have to see what he's saying on Twitter.
- [23:50]
C
And just quickly, Zach and Alex, what are your thoughts just near term, the rest of this week with what happened today under the assumption that Trump is not going to try to remove Powell, at least in the very near future?
- [24:04]
B
Yeah, I'm happy to tackle that. Look, I personally don't think today's price action is primarily about Powell and the Fed. I see a kind of more continuous trade across assets since April 2nd, which was the tariff shock day. And you've seen US equities lower, non US equities outperform, $ weaker, steeper curve, scarce commodities benefiting. I think what we are seeing is big real money pools of capital make big changes to portfolio allocations that they've had in place for many years. U.S. equities and the dollar long were the big structural trades of the last 15 years. And those trades are coming undone. And so we're not going to see the Fed chair fired in the next week. We're probably not going to see a big pivot from the White House on tariffs in the next week. So for me, the song remains the same. You're supposed to be avoiding assets that are at the center of the storm, which are really large cap US equities and favoring assets that benefit from this sort of stagflationary environment. And for me, that is scarce commodities, gold, copper, and most importantly, bitcoin. I mean, for me, this is really bitcoin's moment. And, and you know, is exactly the type of reason why, you know, macro people get involved in, in the, in the bitcoin trade is for, because we are seeing a structural shift from the dollar and I think it will have big medium term positives for bitcoin. But for the short term over the next week, for me, we continue to see the same trends that we've had since April 2nd with more or less no change.
- [25:40]
C
And Alex, I mean, talking like continuing the discussion about the structural shift, I mean, rotation into European equities and German bonds, et cetera. I'm sure there's plenty of fund managers that are listening to this and I mean, what are the questions that they should be asking themselves? Because Europe is not a perfect economy. If it was, then I think people were afraid it was going to be 20 something years ago when they launched the euro, but that hasn't happened. So, I mean, it's not a perfect economy. I mean, they've lowered rates to support their economy. They're worried about cheap Chinese dumping on them after they're being shut out of the US Market. I mean, how should investors think about Europe and some of the other, I guess, places around the world that there are suddenly other emerging markets that they're suddenly looking at? I mean, there's no one that can really replace the US Right now. I mean, it's the safest port in the storm. But the US is such a gargantuan share of, of capital markets in the global economy that there's no perfect substitute.
- [26:43]
D
The thing is, the question is pretty much where to hide. That's the question, where do you hide? And the answer is, unfortunately, nowhere. Because if you're going to hide in gold right now, well, you already missed the largest move in decades on gold. It's like Trump could turn his view on China and yield very fast, out of nowhere with a tweet. And then gold is down. It's quite likely we would say gold could be down 7% in a day. Well, in a day it's too much. But let's say in a week, a minus 4% in a day can definitely see that happen. Then you're stuck there and you're suffering. So the point is it's where to hide. It's very difficult era.
- [27:33]
E
Take a look, Stephen, at this chart. So this chart shows it's ticker fxy, it's currency shares, Japanese yen trust. So this is where people are hiding. People are hiding in Swiss franc bonds and Japanese bonds. That's where people are hiding in addition to gold. But gold is a commodity now. The answer used to be US Bonds. This goes back to the behavior shift that Zach was alluding to earlier.
- [27:59]
C
Right.
- [28:00]
E
We want people to be buying bonds and they're not. That's the plan, by the way. They're all overbought too. They're all overbought. My, you know, my base case is this is classic bear markets. This, this is very, we're in a bear market. You can get a rally if there's a pivot in policy. It started as a correction tariff fed confidence shock, seamless soft data. If you shift policy, you can get a recovery in asset prices. If you don't shift policy, then you get declining earnings growth, declining margins. That translates into losses. And so this is my base case is bear market. But if policy changes decisively, not in a mishmash kind of way, where it's like Lutnik today and Bessem tomorrow and Peter Navaro another day, then you know, then you can, you can get a recovery. Technology firms will report earnings next week. That'll be important for large cap tech. Also Friday this week is when the blackout period on share buybacks ends. So during earning season there's a period of a few weeks where companies cannot buy back their shares. Share buybacks are an important part of the bid and market liquidity is extremely thin, extremely thin. So that you know, that can be a positive catalyst. You're looking for that. One other data point is today you're at the August 5th lows in the correction and bulls did defend the August 5th lows around 3:30 today, which is, that's good if you're, if you're gonna rally. Now is a place where you can rally.
- [29:39]
C
Okay, I'm sorry, based on what you just said, the buybacks, I'm particularly interested in like which sectors which companies may, may engage in in those buybacks or, or ones that might sit it out because it really kind of signals to what executives think about the current.
- [29:59]
E
It's the Mag 6. It's those name, right? Like there's a trillion dollars in buybacks. By the way, this year that'll happen over a trillion. It's those Max 6 names that have tremendous amounts of free cash flow. Right. So that means Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, those are the names that will other names that do buybacks too. By. There are plenty of other names that do buybacks just to be clear. But they do the bulk of the buybacks given just their massive free cash flow.
- [30:26]
C
And I know that they're struggling, I mean just because the hyperscalers with like deep SEQ and just concerns about like AI, I guess how intensive AI really is, I think there's a real spotlight on those in particular and they're a bellwether for such a big private market that I think that is an appreciated data point. So I'm glad you brought that up. Does anyone. Zach, maybe this is a good one for you. What do you think is the current lower bound for the dollar? It keeps dropping, especially compared to other major currencies.
- [31:00]
B
Good question. Look, I think Alex made a good point earlier about the tactical. Over the next week you gotta be a little bit care about things like gold, which have had a big move. I agree short term volume could be very high depending on what we hear from the White House. But I have high conviction in the weaker dollar trend at this point. I mean this is a trade that has been a long time coming. This isn't the kind of beginning of this discussion. It's sort of the dollar has been overvalued for a while. The US international investment position and current account balance have been imbalanced for a while. The question is when do you have a big catalyst that begins a period of trend, dollar weakness? I believe we have that catalyst now. So where are you going? There's lots of different measures for the dollar, but to use the imperfect DXY measure just because it is the most widely followed, I think we are headed to 70 on the DXY over a few years. So a trend dollar depreciation and very comparable to what we have seen after other periods of big trade conflicts in US history. So it sounds like a big move, but to me it is exactly what we've seen after big events like this in the past. You know, what we saw on April 2 from Trump in my view is most comparable to the Nixon shock on August 15, 1971 where we did a sort of remaking of global trade and currency policy in the United States all at once. I think we are living through a period comparable to that. And to me that means a big trend in dollar weakness. So something like DXY to 70 would be my, my own price target. And so what does that mean for your portfolios? Those are the conversations that we're having with investors. And I think, you know, Alex's point about the, the tactical is, is well taken. But I think that gold will perform well in that type of environment. And I think that Bitcoin will perform exceptionally well in that type of macro environment.
- [33:09]
C
Okay, so just one more, I don't want to interrupt this terrific discussion, but just a quick break for ads and then we're going to come right back. Hi, I'm Matt Hogan, CIO of Crypto Asset Manager, Bitwise. Look, crypto can be confusing.
- [33:26]
B
There's so much noise and the space changes so quickly.
- [33:30]
C
That's why every week I write a five minute memo on the biggest stories impacting crypto. In plain English, why is Bitcoin up or down?
- [33:39]
E
What are people missing?
- [33:40]
C
Where should investors look next?
- [33:42]
B
Get the lowdown Every week.
- [33:44]
E
Sign up to get the weekly CIO.
- [33:46]
B
Memo delivered straight to your inbox.
- [33:49]
C
Go to bitwiseinvestments.com CIOmemo that's bitwiseinvestments.com CIOMemo.
- [33:56]
B
Carefully considered, consider the extreme risks associated.
- [33:59]
E
With crypto before investing.
- [34:01]
A
If you love the conversations we have here on Bits and bips, you're going to love our brand new Bits and BIPS newsletter. Our team will break down the key macro trends impacting crypto, the biggest market moves and expert insights you won't find anywhere else, whether it's the Fed inflation or major Dow proposals. If it affects crypto, we've got you covered. Best part, it's completely free. Stay ahead of the market and subscribe now at bits and bits. Beehive.com that's bitsandbips.beehive.com find the link in the show notes.
- [34:33]
C
Okay, Rahm, I know you wanted to make a point on or show the DXY charts what you got.
- [34:38]
E
Yeah, just briefly, just, you know, I think I agree with Zach's point here. Yeah, these policies are bearish for the dollar. This is exactly what Zach was saying. Yeah, the US Dollar broke through recent lows. That does not look good. Does not look good. So if you want to understand why gold is up and bitcoin is up, this is why investors are selling US Dollar denominated assets. That includes US Bonds and that includes US Stocks. And foreign investors are doing it and Americans are doing it also. Yeah, with the current set of policies, it's hard to see that reverse. A high inflation rate is 3%. We're talking about 10 to 25% inflation rates that are higher than Smoot Hawley. And when people say, hey, this is a one time inflation shock, that's a very abstract copacetic statement. It sounds like you're in hospice and listening to some light soft music. The one time inflation shock. Have your pain. This is the pain. And then we'll get to Valhalla. It's a severe price shock and the impact is to lower earnings both for corporates and for consumers and increased costs. You know, and I think the other point brought up earlier, like you, you know, you can get wage price spirals. That can happen. You know, this is a theory that Steve Moran wrote in a paper and they said, hey, if we have tariffs then the dollar will strengthen. That hasn't happened. It's just wrong, it's flawed. And rates went up. This isn't helping Main street at all. Mortgage rates are higher, Lumber costs are higher. The only thing that's gone lower is energy costs. Why? Because it's concerned about global recession risk. So you save on your fuel, but now you have a 401k, that's a 201k and 10 to 15 trillion dollars in a negative wealth effect with a 19 times PE multiple. The elevated valuation.
- [36:33]
C
I don't know where oil is today. I think it's in what, the mid-60s or something. And I know President Trump was talking about that as a, as a good thing. Inflation is going down. Look, gas is coming down. But as you said, Ron, that, that, that pretends some, some heavy pain for, for the economy.
- [36:49]
E
I, I'll pay $4 gas for all time highs.
- [36:53]
C
Yeah. Alex, why don't you, you jump in.
- [36:57]
D
Here on this dollar move right now. As of, as of right now. August 2009. Sorry, it's May 2009 and we are on the 21st. I think is by the, you add an extra percent and a half correction and this is going to end up being the largest move since the 70s.
- [37:24]
B
Monthly down move.
- [37:26]
D
Yeah, exactly. And, and on, on like people ask like when do you fade? When do you take it's it's oversold or it's overbought? And with these kind of moves, I think it's not very wise to be fading the trend at all. Doesn't matter how overbought or sold it is. It's very easy to actually go bust doing that pretty much. And, and on that, I wanted to comment on something that actually also ties up to, to the where do you hide? And what Zak was saying is ironically bitcoin may be one of the best places to get into because it's been a risk on assets since March 2020. And it took the most insane event in modern financial history, which was coronavirus, to change the correlation and turn bitcoin into something that actually it was perfectly non correlated to equities. This is something that people believes because of that famous liquidity chart, which is nonsense. That bitcoin followed equities. No, that's also, that's different kind of nonsense. Actually it's very similar kind of nonsense. But yeah, it's the kind of thing made by people who don't understand econometrics. But anyway, the point is Bitcoin until March 2020 had a correlation that almost perfectly averaged zero. Hovered around zero perfectly since inception. It took coronavirus corona crash to turn Bitcoin into a high levered S&P 500. And it may take this insanity we're going through to turn Bitcoin into digital gold. So the way to think about this I think is if we get a bounce and Trump backtracks and we get a very strong bounce on risk, I think bitcoin flies. And if the opposite happens and we keep on crashing, at least bitcoin is holding up extremely well. In fact it's up since April 2nd. And there is a narrative that is self fulfilling, that eventually starts attracting flows which I think we're already seeing. And the last thing here is a very long Bitcoin by the way. But on a, as a caveat, it's like the move since last night was highly, was driven by a lot of leverage. So it's Bitcoin, you know, it's, it's a very unpredictable asset. Highly volatile, very concentrated pockets of, of liquidity. This thing, yeah, we could get unlucky. And this thing suddenly is down 6%. I don't know where, you know, the entire narrative goes out the window, but whatever.
- [40:25]
C
Sorry Alex. So let's a little bit here because I'm very interested. I mean I think Rob, maybe you can quickly show the chart of the timing of the Dave Portnoy tweet.
- [40:36]
E
Oh yeah, that's a good one. Let me show one chart real quick. Back to Alex's point on what works. I think everyone wants to know what works in a bear market.
- [40:43]
C
Absolutely.
- [40:44]
E
And then we got to show the Portnoy chart which is just hilarious because this guy's timing. He's as good as Kathy woods. As far as I can tell, he's not good. So this shows different bear markets. It shows when they started, ended the length the recession, the inflation rate and then the nominal return, the S and P and then different assets Assets classes 10 year 30 year 10 year tips Germany Japan T bills Gold and then currencies Japan USD Swiss Franc USD we saw these last two are doing very well right now and then dxy. Okay so yeah this is a good thing to screen capture or take a look at. I wrote this in the Illumina Ledger newsletter this weekend if you want to see kind of our views on this. But the headline is in a bear market your mission is to preserve capital. There's very few assets that kind of fly. Okay. It's very rare and usually for some unique circumstances and you're not seeing the 10 year perform like it did in the dot com era. I kind of agree Alex's points earlier on the hey don't be a hero part. Shorting assets can work but most people will not do it successfully.
- [41:58]
C
Here's a question I actually wanted to ask all of you and I didn't tell you about it in advance so I'm interested in your thoughts. I think today what Bitcoin actually recovered everything that a loss from Liberation Day and obviously other asset classes with the exception of I guess gold have not. But I would, I'd love to see if we could kind of break down the value proposition of Bitcoin into its core components. Because this is a question that comes up to me a lot and I'm sure many of you with your clients, so on and so forth. It's sort of like decoupling or uncoupling with other asset classes. Except perhaps with gold. The store value narrative has certainly taken hold. The digital more divisible store value is something too. But we're also living in a world where I guess for the first time in a very long time, maybe since Bretton woods, we have to really talk about the potential dissipation of the US dollar as the world reserve currency. And in that case, I mean Bitcoin is not well suited to take take on that role. It's way too volatile as you said Alex, and frankly too many people huddle and don't want to part with it for any reason because of the fear of losing out on future gains. I know that they're I'm getting pitched every day by someone with a new BTC DeFi platform. I'm trying to make Bitcoin a yield bearing asset and create an economy for Bitcoin. Frankly, I don't see most of it. I mean maybe they mean well, but I just don't see any of them having a very strong business case. So how does all of that fit in in the way that you value bitcoin and try to create a more nuanced discussion beyond just buy it and hold it. And then the bigger question is at some point if people really do move away from the US Dollar, what's going to take its place? I don't think that bitcoin is an ideal or suitable candidate even to do that, but maybe some of you disagree.
- [43:57]
E
Here's the Portnoy slide. So David Portnoy, he's with which organization that again, I don't know if that really matters. Anyway, yeah, barstool. Suppose this is a chart of bitcoin and then at 12:18pm he says has crypto actually decoupled, meaning uncorrelated. And then of course that was the top and then bitcoin dump. But although bitcoin today, right now as we speak is a 87,100 so somewhat above from that level you saw in the chart.
- [44:30]
B
Well, I'd love to weigh in on that Stephen and curious everyone else's take on this as well. So I just wanted to offer some high level points because there's a lot of discussion about this question on dollar dominance, including on crypto, Twitter and I don't know that people have necessarily kind of thought through exactly what what that means. You know what, what does that mean? Exactly what? What it means is that the the US economy is around 20% of the world economy, plus or minus, say 5% depending on what you're measuring. But the US dollar is about 60% of global finance, again plus or minus depending on what you're measuring. So 20, the US is 20% but the dollar is 60% and so the dollar is dominant, meaning the US dollar punches way above the US economy's weight in the global economy. When we say that the US is losing its dominant status, all that we mean is that that number 60% is converging downward towards 20%. The dollar is not going away. The dollar will be the number one reserve currency asset for a long time. But over the last 10, 20 years it has on the margin been losing its most dominant position to other things, including the Chinese yuan, including physical gold. And when we say that the tariffs could affect dollar dominance, what I mean by that is that it can accelerate the diversification away from the dollar that is already in train and so that 60% will fall over time. And I have high conviction about that. Now how does bitcoin fit into that story? Now there's lots of different ways that we can tell that story. Bitcoin is its own special thing and it's not like any other asset in global markets. Digital gold is probably the most effective metaphor for what Bitcoin is in traditional markets. But it is its own special thing. And one of the implications that I think these events have for Bitcoin is a direct one, meaning that sovereign investors have been diversifying in part into physical gold, especially since western countries put sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. I personally believe that sovereign investors will buy Bitcoin this year. That is one of the consequences, I think of these events that we will see efforts to diversify sovereign assets, including sovereign reserves. And, and my own working assumption is that that will include Bitcoin. Now there'll be many other changes that are relevant for Bitcoin, but I think the digital gold aspect of Bitcoin will extend to many more buyers, more companies, more high net worth individuals, and in my own view, probably to sovereign buyers this year as well. So I think these events will have direct implications for Bitcoin demand and for price. Curious everyone else's take on that.
- [47:26]
D
Just wanted to comment on what you were saying Steven on basically how to get yield on Bitcoin. Just a quick one here. You can get yield on bitcoin by time locking your Bitcoin in your own wallet without giving up custody and delegating that to core chain to get right now yield around 7% non custodial. That's yeah, I think it's, it's.
- [47:58]
E
Yeah.
- [47:58]
D
Considering a shield.
- [48:02]
E
A bull case, bear case for you here. You know, on the, on the, the bull cases, you know, the relative performance of Bitcoin is notable. You can't deny it. It's outperformed other asset classes including today. It's up a couple points. Right. So that's one. And number two, it benefits from a devaluation of the US dollar which is happening right now. You can see it in gold terms. You can see it in Bitcoin terms. If there are continued confidence shocks in the American system, Bitcoin should benefit from that. The seasonality is also there in place too. That's the bull case. The bear case is that Bitcoin's risk asset. And if you look at what's happening equity markets, the volatility we see today is similar to the volatility we see during COVID This is a Covid level volatility. Bitcoin didn't do well in Covid. And you know the standard theory is that if you get A recession, people sell assets that are correlated to their consumption basket. So they sell risk assets. So if you get a recession, I do think bitcoin would take a hit. We don't have that right now. I think Trump can actually intervene. Every day that passes though, the problem gets bigger. So anyway, I think those are both sides of it.
- [49:27]
C
I'm interested. Ram, just to build on what you said, a lot of new bitcoin buyers have never faced a recession. I mean I'm talking ETF buyers, I mean corporates, I guess, some, some sovereigns. Can you maybe. Because I know you've done this in previous episodes of Bits and Bits. I'm sure you do it in your regular life. I mean, maybe talk about just sort of the demographics of bitcoin buyers and holders and in particular the ETF purchasers and how they might behave if we really hit a prolonged recession. Have you seen demographic and maybe Zach, you can even answer this too.
- [50:05]
E
Demographics are really simple. If you sold drugs on Silk Road in 2011, you're a billionaire. Bitcoin, that's your demo, that's your core. I'm teasing. Half teasing actually. It's a lot of wealth that was created from those early adopters of bitcoin. But yeah, the demographic is pretty young, I would say of sub 40. Now our clients, we have a number of wealthy crypto native clients that have generated extraordinary amount of wealth. I don't think people understand that like this is significant amount. It's a three trillion asset class, maybe it's two and a half trillion, whatever the number is right across a concentrated base. So it's extraordinary crypto wealth around there. And that demographic skews young. They're interested in aging and longevity and performance and their founders and very thoughtful people. Very thoughtful people. Original thinkers too. So. But that's the non consensus thinkers, entrepreneurs and there's a mix of people. Some people like to hodl, some people play the cycle. I think the better approach is to approach it as a play the cycle.
- [51:15]
D
You know guys, somebody just said here in the comments, recessions never come when everyone expects it. I think that's true with some very rare exceptions, which is basically when really shit really hits the fun 2020. We did get a recession. Everybody expected it in that march and it did happen. I think this is a very similar case. And if things don't change very fast, the US is going into a very severe recession. And the thing is Trump has to very well know this by now. I mean parts of the economy, they're already going into standstill and a recession.
- [51:58]
E
Alex, I don't know if you saw that reporting. Yeah. They even have a joke at the White House. It's called the quote, 1929 scenario. They have a joke like that in the White House.
- [52:07]
D
I'm not so sure. It's mostly a matter of, I think it's mostly a matter of ego because if we get a very large, if we get the economy say down 2% this year, inflation up to 4%, he gets destroyed in the midterms, he becomes a lame duck president. This is the bull he likes to win.
- [52:26]
E
It's not a case I believe in, but this is the bull case, the Trump bull case, around the reason for tariffs. Okay, we have tariffs. We eliminate income taxes for everyone under $100,000. Pass. Go collect $200 and win a reelection and get midterms. That's the story. That's the story right now.
- [52:44]
C
I call that the unicorn case.
- [52:46]
E
But, but that's the case people are making. I don't think, I don't buy that case. I think that if you get into a recession, even if you're recovering by the time the midterms happen, people may not even know that that's the price.
- [53:02]
B
I think this is a great debate. I maybe just add, I mean, I don't know that a recession is baked in. And, but full disclosure, I have been one of those people that has made a career trying to call recessions and frequently got it wrong. So I understand how difficult it is to call these things right. But when we look at the kind of Trump policy package, you know, tariffs are one element of that and there's a lot of moving parts and it's part of the negotiation, etc. But there is tax cuts and deregulation and maybe other other things and maybe deals that lead to domestic investment and production. So I'm not sure. I think I'm open minded on whether we have two negative quarters of GDP growth and some labor market weakness this year. It may, it may happen. What I have more conviction in is I think it's much more likely that inflation is going to average above 2% than below 2% over the next couple of years and the dollar is probably going to fall. And so when I'm thinking about asset markets, if the conviction were a recession, I would just say you're supposed to buy bonds. But for me, the conviction is more about kind of disorderly price shocks and currency weakness. And I think the asset market implications of portfolio implications are different. And I think it's a tough call really. What the growth consequences are of all this.
- [54:15]
E
First off, recessions are sometime predictable. 2008 crisis, you had money markets break the buck. You had Jim Kramer have a meltdown in August of that year and you had a severe financial crisis. You had a dot com bust, you had a Covid and the onset of the pandemic. Everyone saw that we had an instant recession. In 911 you had an instant recession due to the confidence shock. So sometimes you can. I think the more relevant marker in a recession is job losses. The technical definitions I don't think really matter. The hallmark of a recession are job losses. So the question is, will you get job losses? With the current policy package and every element of the GDP equation is going negative from fiscal dominance to fiscal restraint, from more trade to less trade. Consumers are getting in their turtle shell capex spending going down so on. The state and local governments are also pulling back. They're getting less federal backstep, doge cutting a couple hundred billion. I'm all for eliminating fraud, waste and abuse, but you have to approach things in a certain way and balance with deregulation and tax cuts, we're still off in the distance. People aren't even considering that. So the policy package is an austerity, recessionary policy package. Companies are pulling back on guidance. So how do you forecast with clarity? You have a negative wealth effect, right? Markets are reflexive. When people feel good about their asset base, they spend more. People don't, they spend less. There's less international travel that's taking place right now. So I think you are seeing those behaviors. It can be stopped. It can be stopped with a policy shift that's immediate and decisive with clarity. We're not seeing that, you know, over the weekend. And another contributor I believe to the Monday sell off, including with Powell, was, you know, Trump said CEOs that are supposedly smart don't understand the economy. You can't do that. Can't do that. That's not going to inspire confidence.
- [56:21]
C
So a couple things I want to start getting ready to wrap up here, but there's still one or two things I want to discuss. I mean, one thing wrong based on your comments that you were saying that I think kind of encapsulates everything. There was an article I read, I forget where it was called something like the Schrodinger's economy something. And it talked about the United Airlines basically issuing two different sets of guidance based on essentially what type of economic world we were in. And that has to be kind of anathema to any sort of equities. Analysts because their whole job is to essentially boil everything down to one stock price for a company. But it just talks to the type of uncertainty and then the challenge for investors, everyone listening here to try to figure out this multi worlds theory. It made me smile a little bit because I'm a big fan of the Big Bang Theory and Schrodinger's cat was a big driver of season two when Leonard was trying to date Penny. But it really just kind of speaks to, this is such a, I mean everyone here is a veteran market watcher and it just speaks to just this unprecedented challenge because we're getting comments what's going to happen the next six months, the next 12 months? I mean you're talking about quarter to quarter. What's going to happen? We're getting close to earnings season and I know people are looking out to banks and wondering if they're going to take big hits into their profitability, if they're going to have to write down credit losses at what level and higher, lower than expected, what's going to happen with consumers. And, and it's just like you said, Rahm, like this could theoretically change with one tweet, one truth and then, but then I guess it also depends will people believe him or not?
- [58:02]
E
Policy has to follow, policy has to match quickly.
- [58:05]
D
On that, I think it brings me on a good point that SAC was saying before that we talk about reversals if something happens, some major trigger on policy. That said, a very long time from weaker dollar trend having just started does make sense regardless because now the world is concerned this could happen again and again and again.
- [58:33]
B
Yeah, if I could just weigh in on that comment. One point, just tiny. It's like when you have a portfolio of assets and one of those assets becomes much more risky, you rebalance to the other assets. And that's what's going on here. It's the dollar assets have become riskier and so people are rebalancing to the other assets. And so that's going to benefit all things that compete with the long dollar trade.
- [58:59]
C
Zach, one follow up to that, as we all know, the US dollar, it became enterprise because after World War II, I mean the US was a place of unprecedented power. But there also was Bretton woods. There were the Plaza Accords, there were many multilateral, I guess, agreements where other countries agreed to give the US Dollar primacy and help maintain that primacy. I mean, Zach, if you're saying that if one, one piece of the basket gets risky, you move away. But if we're going to talk about A permanent move. Do you think there has to be some type of similar multilateral agreement? And how might country, how might the world decide on what that may be?
- [59:40]
B
Yeah, good question. Not necessarily. We don't necessarily have to have a unipolar world forever. My own view is that the end game of all of this is regionalization, that the Chinese yuan is used more extensively in China's sphere of influence. The dollar continues to be extensively used in the Americas and the US as sphere of influence. You know, Europe remains a huge question. And I think that there is room for other things including digital assets like Bitcoin. That is my own expectations. So history does tend to have these, you know, these one currency dominated system and there's network effects for that. But I personally think the end game for our current struggles is a kind of regionalization in terms of negotiations. Look, I every trade conflict is a little bit different and these things don't happen that many times. There have been sort of three major episodes, you know, since the, the early 1970s essentially in the, in U.S. history. But what history tells us is that the outcome of these tensions is very often not so much tariffs remaining in place, but currency weakness that other countries would prefer to deal with the imbalances through a kind of market based mechanism that involves a currency adjustment as opposed to just very high tariffs. So I personally think that that's going to be the outcome that tariffs are not going to ultimately be this high on US and China bilaterally, which is where the high tariffs really will be. But currencies and other things will be part of the adjustment process. But we'll see. I think history doesn't give us a perfect guide to these types of things. But to Alec's point, I think a weaker dollar makes sense in a lot of levels and it accomplishes what the White House is trying to accomplish, which is to shrink the trade deficit. And so to me that's the trending outcome, the trending trade that you're supposed to stick with following these events.
- [61:37]
C
And sorry, Ram for I agree on.
- [61:39]
E
The weaker dollar nodding my head there. I just don't see alternatives to the US Dollar stepping up anytime soon.
- [61:44]
D
The dollar is linked to Argentine peso, very good currency.
- [61:48]
E
Now you need a security guarantee and umbrella. Yes, that's being pulled back. But like, you know, United States has 11 aircraft carriers. That's what's backing up the US dollar. The United States is interceding on the Houthis to protect trade for Europeans because Europeans cannot do that. That's part of the US Dollar. Japan And China will not settle in Chinese currency. There are deep historical reasons for that. And China is not providing guarantees. China's providing security risks for that region. So yeah, US dollar doesn't really have an alternative. It's just getting unfortunately devalued versus other assets and commodities. I think countries can re rate each other's assets lower and that's what's happening now because kind of Alex's point where this uncertainty premium, there's now a Trump risk premium that has to get discounted because there's a possibility that this comes back. Maybe you have clarity but maybe you change your mind the next day. That's a risk premium we now have to account for. So you're going to have more volatility. I don't think markets have fully discounted all of this so you can get some tactical bounces and maybe you get a recovery. But I think the confidence shocks haven't been fully priced in. That's why market liquidity is thin.
- [63:11]
C
So I think why don't we start to wrap this up. But, but to do that I'd like to ask each of you to I guess answer a question or two. Ron, why don't we start with you. I'm interested in either a. What is one question that you yourself are going to try to answer this week related to markets or do you have like one maybe contrarian viewpoint or notion that that is worth sharing?
- [63:44]
E
I think the most important question for markets is what will be the end state for tariff policy? It's the number one question and will it be stable? If you know that, then you have a lot of clarity on a lot of things. Analysts cannot make forecasts. Estimates are driven by forward looking cash flow models. And if you don't have afford pe then you have to guess and you have to pull back. So the number one thing driving markets right now is tariffs. There's a growth scare lurking in the background because if tariffs remain high and elevated, then the gross scare and the soft data translates into hard data. So I mean I'd love to see Lutnick fired, I'd love to see Navarro fired. I'd love to see Besant the Benevolent elevated in terms of economic policy. If you do that, you get a run to. You get a run to all time highs. I don't think that happens by the way. I don't think that happens. It's a probability. It could happen.
- [64:43]
C
That'll be one hell of a tweet though. That happens. Okay, Alex, why don't you. Same question.
- [64:53]
D
So on this weak Japan deal, if there is a very positive Japan deal, bringing rates 10% or lower with clarity, ideally even lower, I'm ready to buy equities very fast, very aggressively, tactically, like one three day hold, four day hold, that's just, that's good enough. And then on, on contrarian view, I think most of the things we discuss here are ironically contrarian because about 30% of the population in the U.S. let's think us now, not the whole world, they are MAGA and they are very, very aligned with their leader and they believe anything he says. Therefore they don't believe that there is going to be recession and they expect a very quick bounce and they expect things to be extremely good no matter what in the US in a year or in six months. So that makes things very complicated because it kind of like complicated and at the same time it brings opportunity because there is a dislocation, there is market inefficiencies. It's not everybody jumping on the same boat at the same time. A lot of people say, fuck this, you're wrong, you're just wrong. Just watch, just wait and see. Trump is going to solve everything and the economy is going to be roaring in Q1 2026, which could happen, but not in the current course, or if.
- [66:30]
C
It doesn't work out, it's because someone else is doing it to you. It reminds me a lot of sanctions policy where the US deployed sanctions for decades after the Cold War as a non kinetic way of trying to change.
- [66:43]
D
Yeah, sorry, one quick comment here. Most of the followers I may know, or half the followers, I've been a very strong Trump supporter, in fact until February, until his tariff policy ended up being not a replay of Trade War 1.0, but the insanity that we've been going through. And I think one of the most important things in markets is not to be right and not to be. It's not about being right or wrong, it's about when we are wrong, how fast we pivot.
- [67:20]
C
Zach, well said. Yeah, same questions to you.
- [67:24]
B
What am I trying to figure out? Well, look, I don't know if it'll be this week, but maybe just to offer something slightly different, like tariffs are one big part of what, what's going on. I personally believe that the tax cuts and the kind of fiscal package question is still a big uncertainty. The Trump administration has talked a lot about reducing deficits. I kind of think that that's actually not going to happen because that has to go through Congress. You know, what the President has asked for is extending his 2017 tax cuts, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. So we may get a pro growth fiscal package, a growth stimulating, a tax cutting fiscal package that offsets some of the growth drag from tariffs. So that's what I'm trying to kind of answer for myself in terms of US Macro questions is where are we going to end up here on the budget deficit? Are we going to get a shrinking of the deficit, in which case like an austerity policy? I think that word was used earlier, in which case my probability a recession would go up. Maybe we don't though. Maybe we just get no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, in which case it's stimulative and the outcomes are more inflationary rather than recessionary. For me, that's a big open question currently in US Macro.
- [68:41]
C
Okay, great. And any last thoughts from any of our panelists?
- [68:46]
B
Could I say one other small thing on this dollar dominance point because I think it's important for crypto here is I think you can be bearish the dollar and think that the dollar is going to lose some degree of dominance in global finance and still be incredibly enthusiastic about stablecoins and stablecoin adoption, which are mostly about dollars. I really think that these are distinct trends and I've seen some commingling of that Twitter lately. I think I am both incredibly bearish the dollar and incredibly enthusiastic about stablecoin adoption, which is an important kind of more micro trend or technological trend playing out in crypto at the moment, adding cash and extra.
- [69:32]
E
And bonds. I mean, I've been buying bonds waiting for better opportunities and better clarity. I liked all the points made all around, including Alex's point being humble and either you can be very nimble or you have to be patient and wait for clarity. Nimbleness is very hard for most people, unfortunately.
- [69:54]
C
Okay. All right. Well, thank you to Zach, Alex Ram for once again sharing your expertise. Thank you to the thousands and thousands who tuned in on the live stream to watch us us. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Bits and Bips. Have a good day, everybody.