Latest / What Bitcoin Did / Can AI Actually Grow America Out of Its Debt? | Jeff Ross

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Can AI Actually Grow America Out of Its Debt? | Jeff Ross · What Bitcoin Did

• 0:00
  What's good for government isn't necessarily good for people.
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  We don't like seeing our grocery bill go up to unaffordable levels like it is right now,
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  or restaurants, or gas, or whatever.
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  We want to see prices come down over time.
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  That's actually awesome.
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  That's why we're such huge proponents of Bitcoin.
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  You want to have scarce money because it makes an abundance in the rest of the things that
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  we want to buy with that money.
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  I think AI is officially too big to fail.
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  We're going to be entering a period similar to 1998 to 2000, where we just have
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  a huge boom, AI-led manufacturing renaissance in the US. I'm just very bullish on our economy in
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  general. You just can't stop this movement. And so I think this whole decentralization movement
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  can't be stopped. It can be ugly or it can be kind of beautiful. There are no rules. So it looks
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  like from a technical standpoint that the bottom is already in. I think most people are going to be
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  surprised, not to the downside this time, but actually to the upside, which will be the opposite
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  of 2025. All right, let's get into it, Jeff. Awesome to see you. We've got a lot to talk
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  about today. I actually want to start on how different this bear market has been, because I
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  think it's really important to highlight because a 50% drawdown, while it doesn't sound hugely
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  different to an 80% drawdown, is massive. The difference is, essentially, if you have an 80%
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  drawdown from highs, you're getting your net worth cut in half and then cut in half again.
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  and then getting back to all-time highs instead with a 50% drawdown you need 100% gain with an
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  80% you need a 400% gain so the difference is ginormous even though it doesn't sound that
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  different how do you think this has changed sort of the structure of the market going forward from
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  here if we have actually hit the bottom yeah well first of all it's really good to see you Danny
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  thanks for having me back on your show of course anytime man yeah I don't I don't do many of these
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  anymore. So it's really fun to get to chat with you. So backing up to early 2025, people would
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  ask me back then, I don't know if we talked about that, but they would be like, well, what do you
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  expect the next bear market to be like? And I said, I would always say, well, it really depends
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  on what the bull market is like. Depends if we have a huge blow off top, which I was expecting
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  and I was wrong. We did not get a huge blow off top. And we've probably talked about that to death
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  why that didn't happen. But it depends. So if you have that exponential rise higher, you almost
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  always get that hockey stick straight back down lower. And it's brutal, and it's fast, and it's
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  painful, and it just like destroys people. And basically, it's all the leverage that was built
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  up on the way up has to get deleveraged on the way down. So you get that leveraged long liquidation
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  cascade, LLC. And so what I was saying is, if we get that huge blow off top, we're going to get
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  another terrible bear market. So we didn't get that this time, right? Everybody was disappointed
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  that all we had was this kind of little hump higher up to about 126,000, 126,000 for Bitcoin,
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  and then a rollover. And so it makes sense to me because we didn't get the exponential move higher,
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  we didn't get that huge drawdown. So this 50 to 55% bear market, that feels about right to me.
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  And what does that mean going forward was your original question. It kind of depends on what
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  Bitcoin does going forward. So if we now have just a grinding bull market higher from here,
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  which I basically expect, I think, you know, we're going to have lots of up and downs along the way.
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  But I think we're headed higher for sure. And if we have just kind of a slow grind higher,
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  where the total market capitalization of the Bitcoin network increases significantly, say,
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  you know, 200, 300, 400, 500 percent or so from here. And we go right now, we're about 1.5 trillion
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  market cap. Say we go up to $5 trillion or maybe we get up even to $10 trillion. That would be
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  fantastic. I don't expect that, but it's possible. It just sort of depends how much leverage is built
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  up and how much enthusiasm is built up along the way. And then as we get to that higher levels of
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  market capitalization, it just becomes less and less likely that we're going to have these huge
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  drawdowns going forward. So if we do get a massive blow up, say in 2028, just pick a number,
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  2028, we have a huge blow off top and Bitcoin spikes to a million and it does hockey sticks
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  higher. I would say look out below. We're probably going to have a pretty painful bear market. We
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  might drop more than 50. We might even break the record of this last bear market that we just got
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  through. It may go down, you know, 60%, 70% or something like that. But if it kind of creeps
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  higher and we only have a little bit of a blow off top, then I would expect that we're probably
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  only going to see kind of a 40 or 50% ish drawdown. For me as a fund manager, that matters a lot.
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  What I hate being is every bear market I turn into a trader because I try to hedge the downside
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  for my clients. And I'm not a great trader. I don't enjoy doing that. I love to hold things
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  for the long term. I love to hold any asset I hold, ideally for forever and never sell.
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  But because of these bear markets and because I don want our fund to go down 60 70 80 in a year like Bitcoin does or like these treasury companies can do I do little trades and things to try to prevent that So going forward though if it looks like we only going to have a drawdown of say 30 or 40 or up to 50 or so
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  it actually makes the most sense from a tax perspective and understanding that we all have
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  limitations that we're never going to sell at the exact top and we're never going to buy back at the
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  exact pico bottom again. Nobody can do that, you know, unless they get lucky. And usually,
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  if they can kind of do it on one side, they tend to be bad on the other side. Like they can sell
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  tops well, but they don't buy back bottoms well or vice versa. There's very few, if any, people
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  that can do both of those very well. So anyways, what does that mean for me? It means that I,
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  as a fund manager, feel way more confident in simply just holding Bitcoin, holding Bitcoin
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  proxies for the duration forever. That's my ideal holding period. And I think that going forward,
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  that increases the likelihood with that lower volatility and with the lower downside risk that
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  I can just sit and hold it for years and even decades at a time. So you said there that you
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  expect this next bull market to be a slow grind rather than sort of a big exponential run-up like
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  we've had in the past. Why do you think that's the case? Well, first of all, everything has been
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  really weird since COVID, right? So we used to have these sort of normal four-year economic cycles
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  that also happened to match the normal four-year Bitcoin cycle, which also happened to match the
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  presidential election cycle here in the US. And everything changed with COVID. So COVID was going
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  along. It looked like we were going to go into this kind of bear market thing. And then all of a
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  sudden, wham, and we just got hit, right? And then everybody remembers March of 2020. And Bitcoin got
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  cut in half literally within a couple of days. It was just super painful, super crazy. And then what
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  happened is the Fed came in and the government came in with massive monetary and fiscal stimulus.
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  and we had this huge spike higher.
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  And I literally was just checking this earlier today,
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  the spike higher in liquidity in the US,
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  so US net liquidity, right?
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  The balance sheet of the Fed minus overnight reverse repos
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  minus treasury general account.
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  We're today, literally today, September 8th,
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  we're still at the same level
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  that we were all the way back in 2020.
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  So we had this huge spike higher
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  and then things kind of went even higher after that in 2021.
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  And then they've basically been chopping sideways to down since that time.
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  And that is a massive market distortion.
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  And it threw off all of the business cycles.
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  And I know you and I have talked about on your show in past episodes, we had a very abnormal recovery, right?
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  Services recovered in the US.
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  Manufacturing did not recover.
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  So in 2022, that was the last time it was kind of positive.
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  And it just kept going lower and lower.
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  And I was waiting like, okay, this is the year 2023.
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  Manufacturing is coming back.
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  Didn't come back.
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  2024, it's coming back.
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  It didn't come back. 2025 didn't come back. This year, finally, it's starting to come back. So we've had the most unusual manufacturing non-recovery. We've had a contraction in manufacturing in the US for the longest extended period since basically World War II, since they started kind of recording this stuff. And you can go back and find this data.
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  There was a funny period like at like late 40s, early 50s, where it was also not great. But this was just a very unusual time period. So that threw off and distorted all of the markets because I think of all of the, you know, supply chain disruptions, fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus that happened related to COVID.
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  So, so why, and this is a really long answer to say, so, so because we had such an unusual contractionary period in US manufacturing and just the economy in general has been kind of sick for several years.
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  I think everything that the Trump administration is doing is basically setting the stage for a very long economic recovery.
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  So we're bringing, you know, we're having deglobalization.
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  We're bringing everything back to the US and back to the Western hemisphere, the Hamiltonian economics and all that kind of stuff.
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  and all of that costs money and all of that leads to structural inflation.
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  And so they're doing things like deregulation across the financial system, across the banking
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  sector, and basically making it easier for manufacturing to come back here to the US.
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  They're doing all of these things and it takes time.
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  People have been sort of mocking it, like, where's this recovery you're talking about?
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  Where is it?
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  So we're finally starting to see it, right?
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  We look at the ISM manufacturing PMI and we're starting to see economic expansion in the
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  manufacturing sector. That's looking very robust at this point. It's also starting to be reflected
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  in GDP. In fact, I just did a screenshot of the Atlanta Fed. They're looking at third quarter GDP
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  right now. As of today, I just looked it up to 4.7% real GDP for the third quarter here in the US.
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  So that's nominal. It's looking at a nominal GDP of about 8% minus inflation,
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  leaves you with about a 4.7% annual GDP rate.
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  That's really good.
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  That's really good.
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  What's driving that growth?
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  Everything we're just talking about.
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  So if this stuff is finally starting to kick in,
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  we're actually starting to get growth.
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  And now I will say it's primarily being driven
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  by this whole AI movement, right?
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  Bringing data centers here getting energy whipped up and deregulated even more We just starting to see that And that healthy for the overall economy So it good for blue collar kind of
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  workers, good for just the engine of a country economic growth. It's not as good for Wall Street.
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  And Michael Howell talks about this a lot. And I agree with him, like money that is
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  everywhere must be somewhere, I think he says. So there's this money floating around in the system.
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  And right now it's all being funneled by the Trump administration and very specifically into these specific sectors that they deem as critical right now.
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  Right. He's declaring national emergency after national emergency to get all of this stuff going.
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  Basically, there's a wartime mentality. We're getting rare earths.
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  We're getting base metal production kind of up and running again.
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  We're boosting the oil and gas sectors as well.
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  And just kind of across the board, getting the military industrial complex kind of up and running again.
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  And all of this stuff has been really dilapidated and left for dead in the U.S. over the last several decades, both administrations included, by the way.
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  And now we're starting to see kind of a new renaissance.
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  So it takes months to quarters to years to see these effects starting to take hold.
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  But they're finally starting to take hold.
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  And so I think that's very bullish in general.
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  And again, how this ties back to Bitcoin, it's sort of weird.
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  And correlation does not equal causation.
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  but you can look back and there's a very tight correlation with US manufacturing PMI and rate
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  of change of Bitcoin. So if manufacturing PMI is accelerating, that tends to accelerate Bitcoin as
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  well. And when they both peak, they tend to peak around the same time. They both tend to decelerate
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  at the same time. So leaves me very bullish in general. I think it has a lot to do with just
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  proof of work and energy production. If you're spending your energy on building real things,
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  proof of work type things. That's bullish for manufacturing, bullish for building and creating
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• 12:18
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• 12:22
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  and use the code wbd see i think it's going to be really interesting because when you talk about
• 15:11
  manufacturing obviously this is way more complex than just data centers but they're kind of at the
• 15:15
  spearhead of this that's the huge incentive that everyone has now to go and build as much data as
• 15:20
  much data centers as you can um but they're politically so unpopular and we can like agree
• 15:26
  I don't think we need to even argue that that's a stupid take.
• 15:28
  Like these are clear, like building out more energy generation is a good thing,
• 15:31
  but they very politically unpopular And Trump at least so far the administration have been really the only one supporting this in a political sense Even seeing people from the conservative side come out and be
• 15:43
  against the build out of data centers. How do you think that plays out, especially like post midterms?
• 15:49
  Do you think there's still going to be a huge incentive to build these things?
• 15:52
  So my first statement is you can't stop an idea whose time has come, right? I can't remember who
• 15:58
  said that, but I think clearly AI has, its time has come and it's coming. And so there's a huge
• 16:04
  neo-Luddite movement of people trying to stop this here, especially here in the United States.
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  Totally agree with you that it's become a political hot button issue. It's very disappointing. If
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  anything ever becomes political, it's no longer reasonable. It's no longer evidence-based. We saw
• 16:19
  that with COVID. We've seen that just kind of all along the way. It's very frustrating because you
• 16:23
  can't have a reasonable conversation about it. It just depends on who you, what side you vote for,
• 16:27
  and that's what you think, right? The way I see this playing out is I think it's going to
• 16:32
  continue to be unpopular and a hot button issue through the election. So through the midterms
• 16:38
  and then right after all these people who are posturing like the governor of Texas and things
• 16:42
  like that to try to look more moderate because it's such a negative perceived issue right now.
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  He's trying to look like a moderate to get more votes. I think all of that goes away after the
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  midterms. So basically everybody who is posturing up until that point is just going to like say,
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  you know what this is such a good decision economically to be pro data center um because
• 17:02
  of you know it just brings in so much money so many resources it actually the communities where
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  they've they've already uh brought data centers like they can just show fact after fact actual
• 17:12
  facts not just marketing opinions about you know how much in income it's brought into the local
• 17:18
  community all of the good things it's doing you know because you're just getting this new energy
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  and money into your local community, very bullish in general. So it's just a very good thing in
• 17:30
  general to do. So I think after the midterm elections, people aren't going to be posturing
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  anymore. They're going to get back to reality again. And then I think it's going to actually
• 17:38
  resume. And I think we're going to see a boom after that going forward. So including, by the
• 17:44
  way, I think there's sort of this tiff going on right now between Trump and Canada, the US and
• 17:49
  kind of like that's just all posturing as well, I think, because they don't want to look like
• 17:54
  they're siding with Trump at all. So we're kind of there, but we're butting heads. That's, that's
• 17:58
  just all like political, like, uh, make believe I think. And so I think a lot of that is going to go
• 18:04
  away as the, as the new, uh, election results come out and whether or not, you know, say if the,
• 18:09
  you know, the Democrats take over the house or the Senate or whatever happens, it just doesn't
• 18:15
  really matter because this whole movement into AI is so much bigger than politics. And its idea has,
• 18:22
  its time has definitely come and there's just no stopping it. And it's very good for humanity and
• 18:27
  it's definitely very good for America in general. And it's what's going to help us kind of revive
• 18:32
  again and revitalize manufacturing again and bring back jobs, bring back GDP growth into the future.
• 18:40
  It's fantastic. So that's my take. I'm pretty optimistic, even though I think it's going to
• 18:44
  get ugly and volatile in the short term, I think in the longer term, I'm very optimistic about it.
• 18:50
  Yeah. So I agree with that, especially when you're just talking about the facts. The facts
• 18:54
  are there, they're obvious. But when it comes to the political side of it, if the Republicans lose
• 18:59
  the midterms, do you think that slows down economic growth because things like this are
• 19:04
  going to get curtailed to a larger degree? I don't think so. Again, I think it's just
• 19:09
  posturing. And I think that, you know, there's a couple of people who are like really hardcore,
• 19:13
  truly like Bernie Sanders, right? Like he's, he hates progress. And even though he's a progressive,
• 19:18
  he hates all of this stuff because it's, it's what Trump thinks is good. So he's the opposite.
• 19:23
  So, but, but everybody else I think is sort of more in the middle and they're just doing and
• 19:27
  saying what it takes to get elected. Once they get elected, I think they're actually going to
• 19:31
  work together. And I think it's going to surprise everybody in the other direction that it's,
• 19:35
  people are going to think it's going to be gridlock and frustration and nothing good is
• 19:39
  going to come out of it. I think lots of good is going to come out of, out of it. And we're going
• 19:43
  to see a real boom in growth. And I think we're going to be entering a period similar to kind of
• 19:47
  like 1998 to 2000, where we just have a huge boom, AI led manufacturing renaissance in the US. And I
• 19:56
  think it's going to be just, I'm just very bullish on our economy in general. So 98 to 2000 sounds
• 20:03
  great, but what comes next? If we do have a dot com style run up, all the AI stuff that's going on,
• 20:09
  do you expect a dot-com style crash at the end of it or do you think this might be different
• 20:13
  so there are you know there are lots of talks and i've even posted some things by some uh analysts i
• 20:19
  really respect talking about this being the circular economy right if all we need is like
• 20:24
  one pin to fall somewhere in this system you know that nvidia is kind of at the center of it
• 20:29
  and all of these players the open ais and anthropics and and the data center builders
• 20:34
  the Bloom Energies, and then the crowd,
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  all the NeoCloud and all these different companies
• 20:42
  that are in here, the Googles, the Amazons.
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  If any one of them starts to falter,
• 20:47
  it could take the whole system down.
• 20:48
  And I agree with that.
• 20:50
  But I think we're a very long ways away from that. And right now, this is just so massively profitable. And there's so much upside benefit to continuing to do this build out that I think we have at least a couple of years to go before the end of it.
• 21:04
  The difference between the dot-com boom is back then, and I'm not the first one to say this, but lots of analysts have talked about this.
• 21:14
  There were no profits back then.
• 21:16
  It was all speculation like, oh, my gosh, the TAM, the total addressable market could be in the millions or the billions, but we still don't have any revenues and earnings.
• 21:23
  And we certainly don't have any earnings to show for it.
• 21:26
  This time, we actually have revenues.
• 21:28
  We have earnings.
• 21:29
  I think because of the pace of AI and how quickly it moves and infiltrates, we're going to see productivity blossom, I think, not just in individuals, but also in businesses.
• 21:40
  And it's going to happen much faster than it did with the spread of the internet initially.
• 21:45
  I think instead of it taking jobs away, which was initial concern, and I used to talk about that too, because I would watch, you know, Sam Altman and Demis Hassabis and Dario, and they'd all be talking, and Elon, you know, like, oh my gosh, AI is going to steal everybody's jobs.
• 21:59
  We're all going to be unemployed.
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  We're going to have a civil war.
• 22:01
  It's going to be terrible.
• 22:02
  We need to do UBI, right?
• 22:04
  They're all sort of changing their tune now.
• 22:06
  And what we're actually seeing in practice is that instead of taking people's jobs, it's actually exploding productivity.
• 22:12
  So, you know, take like a radiologist, a radiologist, which I used to do a radiologist who could maybe read like 60 to 100 examinations in a day.
• 22:21
  Suddenly, if they're AI enhanced, they can read 200 or 300 or 500 exams a day because AI is doing like a bulk of the of the work.
• 22:30
  And so if you're, you know, if you're a doctor or you're, say, a lawyer, you can suddenly instead of if you're an attorney and you can only see like five clients a day.
• 22:39
  Now, suddenly you can deal with 50 clients a day, you know.
• 22:42
  And so I just think that's going to expand throughout the economy and the people who embrace AI the quickest and start to find ways to do this.
• 22:50
  We're going to see this expand. And that's what I think we're going to see.
• 22:53
  We're actually going to see an explosion, I think, in GDP that's led by AI.
• 22:57
  And then and this isn't even talking about the robotics that are coming after this. Right.
• 23:00
  So I think we're already seeing that in China, that massive productivity boom and the deflation because of that.
• 23:07
  We're still years behind China and as far as robotics go.
• 23:10
  But that's coming as well. And I think that's what the government, what our like Trump administration is banking on, is that after all of this CapEx that we're doing, the spending that we're doing, we're hoping to see a very fast wave of deflation to help bring down this structural inflation that's happening and bring down this debt to GDP that everybody's freaking out about.
• 23:29
  And I think it's actually possible. Like I'm leaning increasingly optimistic as long as we don't get into a major world war, as long as like we don't butt heads with China. And we could, by the way. But if that doesn't happen, I tend to be quite optimistic that we actually can sort of, for the first time, and I hate to say this because I'm going to get ridiculed, but we actually could grow our way out of this problem and have a whole different set of problems.
• 23:52
  we could have this huge massive productivity boom and actual deflation. And that's a great
• 23:57
  problem for humans to have. It's a much larger issue for governments to have deflation, but that's
• 24:01
  great for humanity. So anyways, I'm leaning optimistic as of where we stand right now.
• 24:08
  I love it. We need some more optimism. And growing your way out of debt is,
• 24:12
  so if you had had this conversation in 2023 before, like I know AI was around then,
• 24:16
  but it wasn't what it is today. I think the idea of growing your way out of debt was almost a
• 24:20
  question that was like ridiculed in some ways. Like it was seen as a non-starter. If you think
• 24:26
  this can really be an option, like that seems like the best solution that we could possibly have.
• 24:31
  Like the other options just aren't really politically palpable. They're never going to
• 24:35
  happen. So growing your way out of debt is cool. I hope we can do that. But what are the issues that
• 24:40
  deflation caused for the government? Like what will we see on the other side of this if that happens?
• 24:45
  Yeah, the problem. So so the whole dollar based system is a debt based system, right? It's credit. And so as a credit based system grows, it has to keep growing. You can't slow down the growth because what happens then is it sort of implodes. It just eats itself from the outside in. And that's terrible for the government. Right. It literally can bring down the system.
• 25:08
  So that's why the government talks so negatively about deflation.
• 25:12
  And they're like, oh, it's very good to have a, you know, we're shooting for 2% inflation.
• 25:16
  Like they're always looking for at least minimal growth because you have to continue to grow the monetary supply.
• 25:22
  You have to continue to expand debt.
• 25:24
  It just doesn't work in reverse very well as a government, which is the exact opposite, by the way.
• 25:29
  And most people, it's really funny to me to hear how many people don't really make a distinguish or distinguish between the two.
• 25:37
  that what's good for government isn't necessarily good for people and vice versa. So what's good for
• 25:42
  people for the rest of us is that prices go down. We don't like seeing our grocery bill go up to
• 25:46
  unaffordable levels like it is right now or restaurants or gas or whatever. We want to see
• 25:51
  prices come down over time. That's actually awesome. That's why we're such huge proponents
• 25:56
  of Bitcoin You want to have scarce money because it makes an abundance in the rest of the things that we want to buy with that money So what bad for government is good for people and vice versa And I think that going to be the problem going forward ironically is the government going to be struggling with this
• 26:10
  deflationary or disinflationary at the least kind of setup that we have with AI and robotics being
• 26:16
  fully integrated throughout our economy. And the rest of us are just going to be partying because
• 26:23
  we're going to be like, sweet, everything's getting cheaper. Our food's getting cheaper.
• 26:25
  you know technology is getting cheaper everything is going to be getting cheaper and that actually
• 26:30
  leads to a higher quality of life for the rest of humanity so again leaves me leaves me very bullish
• 26:35
  government officials may may have a different opinion of it but i'm i'm bullish so i mean
• 26:41
  that seems like the only real solution to the ever expanding k-shaped economy as well which
• 26:47
  is which we need for just society um but the question is like if this is bad for governments
• 26:52
  will they let it happen or will they even have an option like is this just going to happen and
• 26:57
  they're going to have to deal with it that's what i think is so remarkable at this time period you
• 27:00
  know we've talked about before where i think we both kind of think we're in a fourth turning type
• 27:04
  of view but i also think we're in a much larger sovereign individual kind of 500 year cycle for
• 27:10
  humanity where because of we're moving from the analog age to the digital age this is the first
• 27:17
  time in history, we're going to be able to diffuse and decentralize. And that's allowed for because
• 27:24
  of the internet, because now intelligence will be a commodity. Basically, it'll be free for
• 27:29
  everybody to have as much intelligence as you need. You can work from anywhere. You can think
• 27:34
  as well as any other person in the world. It's increasingly making irrelevant central nation
• 27:46
  state governments and their monopolies on power. So I think we've reached peak nation state. I think
• 27:51
  America was the last greatest empire with the most power. And I don't think we will see that again,
• 27:56
  probably for 500 or 1000 years again. I think it's setting the stage for everything to just sort of
• 28:01
  diffuse. So why do I bring this up is because it's it is not good for centralized nation state
• 28:07
  governments, they're not going to be able to keep this system together because the system wants to,
• 28:11
  we want to have this entropy. We want to see things start to diffuse and spread out.
• 28:17
  And so, again, I think that's very good for humanity. You know,
• 28:20
  as we have more abundance of goods and more abundance of services for people,
• 28:26
  again, it's going to increase quality of life. It's increasing the pie for everybody,
• 28:30
  the quality of life pie. And there just won't be such a need for governments going forward.
• 28:34
  You know, they're going to be competing, at least this is the thesis of the sovereign
• 28:38
  individual. They're going to be actually competing for us to come live in their little jurisdiction
• 28:42
  or whatever that is, because they're going to want to be actual servants of the people like
• 28:47
  they're supposed to be instead of the rulers of the people. It just gives much more power to the
• 28:52
  individual itself, himself or herself, and takes it away from these centralized entities. So to me,
• 28:58
  that's, again, I'm very optimistic about that, very excited. I think it's going to be an ugly
• 29:02
  transition phase for sure, especially for America, because no nation state wants to give up its power
• 29:07
  and the hegemony that America has achieved
• 29:11
  over the last 80 years,
• 29:12
  they're not gonna wanna give that up willingly.
• 29:14
  So it's gonna be ugly
• 29:16
  and it's gonna be kind of painful to watch.
• 29:17
  It's like watching people argue over in the corner.
• 29:19
  You don't really like to watch it,
• 29:21
  but you kind of look at it,
• 29:22
  but you don't really want to.
• 29:24
  I think that's what we're gonna see
• 29:25
  for the next like five, 10, 20 years or so.
• 29:28
  But in general, we're gonna see this deglobalization,
• 29:31
  decentralization, good for humans,
• 29:33
  not as good for centralized governments going forward.
• 29:36
  So it's a little bit like Balaji's city-state idea.
• 29:39
  And we've already seen that with Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Singapore and El Salvador now.
• 29:44
  And those are the places, places like Panama, that I can see really trying to adopt this
• 29:48
  because they have a huge incentive to try and bring people in.
• 29:50
  And for the people that are willing to move, that's going to be great.
• 29:54
  But I'm really unsure what it means for America.
• 29:56
  Do you have any kind of idea?
• 29:58
  I know you say it's going to be ugly, but what does it mean?
• 30:01
  It just depends.
• 30:01
  It depends on how much the leaders embrace it.
• 30:04
  You know, it's kind of like what was going to happen to the UK after World War II when they clearly were losing their grip on the world and their imperial dominance.
• 30:14
  It can be painful or it cannot be painful.
• 30:16
  So if you can get some humble leaders who can be like, OK, like, you know, and maybe see the future like this is actually good for humanity.
• 30:22
  I'm actually a public servant. I'm going to do what's good for humanity and not just to consolidate my own power.
• 30:30
  That could be a good thing. Right.
• 30:32
  If you have somebody who's willing to do that, and that's what kills me about people, like people who like the Elizabeth Warren types who just like hate Bitcoin.
• 30:39
  They hate the idea that people could like actually know what to do with their own money and can be sovereign over their lives.
• 30:45
  Right. Like they just they think they believe that they are born to be to rule over the rest of us.
• 30:52
  Those kind of people. And if enough of them are in charge, it's going to make this whole process painful.
• 30:56
  I think they can't stop it, just like I think the neo-Luddites can't stop the growth of AI and these data centers being built out.
• 31:03
  They may help push some of it up into orbit, which I think is coming as well, which is super interesting.
• 31:08
  But you just can't stop this movement.
• 31:10
  And so I think this whole decentralization movement can be stopped It can be ugly or it can be kind of beautiful as well depending on who the leader is depending on how humble people are I think it going to be pretty ugly in the US
• 31:23
  I think it's going to be really ugly in communist states, right?
• 31:26
  So if you have a communist country that just wants to have complete authoritarian control
• 31:31
  over its people, they're not going to like that.
• 31:34
  So I think we're going to see some battles between the authoritarian AI versus the freedom
• 31:38
  fighting AIs and they're going to be clashing. And that's just going to be this whole
• 31:42
  kind of new world in the digital age. It's going to be very interesting and almost
• 31:46
  unrecognizable to how it is today. This is totally forth-turning stuff.
• 31:52
  Just to bring it back to Bitcoin a little bit, I think I understand your take on you expect the
• 31:57
  next bull market to be a grind. Because if you think this AI sort of trade, whatever you want
• 32:02
  to call it, has another couple of years in it, that's presumably where the fast money is going
• 32:05
  to stay. Is that why you think that Bitcoin is just going to grind higher in the next bull market?
• 32:10
  Yeah, I think until we see some evidence that liquidity is really overflowing outside of...
• 32:17
  So right now, everything is being directed into this. And not just AI, but AI, energy,
• 32:25
  base metals, rare earths, military industrial complex. Basically, that whole sector is where
• 32:30
  all of the dollars are being funneled right now. And we've seen it. And the red flags we've seen
• 32:35
  are, you know, the hyperscalers have basically used up all of their free cash flow to, you know,
• 32:40
  help support this and help the build out. Then they tap the debt markets for hundreds of billions
• 32:45
  of dollars already. We've seen that. And then they're tapped and that's the public debt markets.
• 32:50
  Then they started tapping the shadow banks. So the Apollos and KKRs and Blackstone, Blackrock,
• 32:55
  those kinds of places. That's great. But they're going to run out of capital there pretty soon.
• 33:00
  And then I think we're going to see a jolt in the system. Like, okay, we're just sort of running out
• 33:05
  of capital. And then that's going to force the government in. So I don't know when that's going
• 33:10
  to happen. To me right now, it's looking like we're going to have sort of smooth macro sailing
• 33:14
  through 2026, at least here in the US. It looks like we may see some of our first jolts in early
• 33:20
  2027. So I don't know. That's just a guess. I'm not predicting anything. But if we see something
• 33:27
  happen that jolts the system, that forces the Fed or forces Besant to come in and start doing some
• 33:33
  serious, like real quantitative easing. And I think it's going to come in the form of just
• 33:37
  basically yield curve control. They've been doing like kind of pretend yield curve control so far.
• 33:41
  I think it's going to turn into actual yield curve control, basically because they need to
• 33:45
  flood the system with more dollars. And so we're still not seeing that. And so that's answering
• 33:51
  your question indirectly. I'm waiting for that to happen where we have an actual flood of new money
• 33:56
  coming in because they can keep doing these little patches along the way. Like that's why they're
• 34:00
  pushing for the whole Clarity Act, right? And stable coins, they want to push just a ton of
• 34:04
  T-bills into the stable coin market as well. And that's another place to put them. They want to get
• 34:09
  this supplementary leverage ratio going for banks so that they can just jam more treasuries into
• 34:13
  banks. That's another place. So I think Besson is just cleverly trying to like, okay, we can put
• 34:18
  some in here and let's put a few hundred billion here and we'll put 10 billion over here. And we'll
• 34:22
  just sort of keep doing that and keep the system going while we have these higher interest rates.
• 34:27
  And then at some point, though, something should happen that will cause the system to be like, look, it's just too much stress right now.
• 34:33
  They have to come in with like serious guns.
• 34:35
  You know, maybe that's Larry Lepard's big print at that point.
• 34:38
  Something that happened where we see excess liquidity.
• 34:40
  And at that point, if that happens, then I will get bullish that we're going to see like an actual kind of exponential, more hockey stick move in the price of Bitcoin.
• 34:48
  Until that happens, though, I think we just get that kind of slow grind higher.
• 34:52
  so generally bullish but not like not like off the charts bullish like we're gonna you know double
• 34:57
  in in a month that kind of thing every bitcoiner eventually has to answer one question if something
• 35:03
  happened to me would my family know what to do could my wife or parents recover my bitcoin and
• 35:08
  would my children inherit the bitcoin that i spent years stacking that's where anchor watch builds
• 35:12
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• 35:18
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• 35:20
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• 35:21
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• 35:25
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• 35:28
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• 35:29
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• 35:31
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• 35:34
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• 35:36
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• 35:38
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• 35:40
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• 35:42
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• 35:45
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• 35:46
  that's anchorwatch.com
• 35:48
  You wouldn't reuse a Bitcoin address
• 35:50
  so why does your phone broadcast the same identifier for life?
• 35:53
  Every sim has a static ID
• 35:55
  and carriers, ad networks and bad actors all use it to track you
• 35:58
  The big carriers have been caught selling that data over and over again
• 36:02
  CAPE is America's privacy first mobile carrier
• 36:05
  Their identifier rotation feature changes your ID every 24 hours
• 36:09
  so you look like a different subscriber every single day
• 36:11
  And sim swaps are off the table
• 36:13
  Your number can't move without a 24 word phrase that only you hold.
• 36:17
  There's also no name at sign up, no social security number,
• 36:20
  and there's no profile to build on you.
• 36:22
  If you a Bitcoiner in America I honestly don know why you use any other network you can head over to cape forward slash wbd and use the code wbd for 33 off your first six months
• 36:33
  that's c-a-p-e.co forward slash wbd okay i've got two questions on that the first one you said that
• 36:42
  you think at some point the government's going to have to step in what would force them to step in
• 36:46
  is it because this is driving all economic growth and they need to prolong that or is it the sort
• 36:52
  national security issues and implications of AI. And is it almost like a bank's too big to fail
• 36:57
  moment again? Yeah. So I've said that in other episodes as well. And I don't know with you,
• 37:02
  but with other folks that I think AI is officially too big to fail. And I think they're signaling
• 37:06
  that. In fact, Besson just made another comment today where he basically said, look, we have to
• 37:10
  win the AI race. And by the way, I take exception. And I think they're sort of doing this marketing
• 37:14
  to lay the groundwork that, look, we have the back of AI and we are going to flood the system
• 37:19
  with liquidity if the time comes. And I think he sees that at some point, the time will come
• 37:24
  where we're running out of capital, right? When you're done, when you don't have any more free
• 37:28
  cash flow, when you can't issue more shares, when you have tapped the public debt markets,
• 37:34
  you've tapped the shadow bank debt markets, you're kind of running out of sources. And then it finally
• 37:38
  goes up to the sovereign level. So at some point, the sovereign, the government is going to have to
• 37:42
  backstop this whole AI build out. Again, like I said, I think that is inevitable that it will
• 37:48
  happen. I just don't know when it's going to happen. So that's what I'm waiting to watch for.
• 37:52
  It looks to me like that we could see the first hints of that in kind of early 2027,
• 37:57
  where maybe things get scary for a month or two or something. And then they do some move where
• 38:01
  they're kind of flooding with liquidity, do some sort of more robust quantitative easing of some
• 38:07
  kind or yield curve control of some kind. And then that reignites the bull market again for risk
• 38:13
  assets. And that would reignite Bitcoin as well. So that's kind of what I'm waiting for. I don't
• 38:18
  know what specifically it will be, but it will be something to the effect of the government is
• 38:23
  backstopping AI. And they will frame it as it is imperative for our survival that we have to beat
• 38:30
  China, our enemy, which I can't stand any of this talk, but that's what they're saying.
• 38:36
  And by the way, I disagree with this because they're making it sound like this is a race we
• 38:41
  have to win. I think that's disingenuous and actually just not true. What is more important is
• 38:49
  the diffusion of AI. So even if we continue to be ahead of China, if China diffuses their models
• 38:57
  across the world, that's way more significant and important than us just winning and having the
• 39:02
  fastest horse. You have to see, well, how many people are using it? Or do we just have 350 million
• 39:08
  Americans using it or does China have 6 billion people around the world using their open source
• 39:14
  models? That really matters. Those kind of things actually matter. And so I just think the way it's
• 39:19
  all being framed is just, it's unfortunate, it's disingenuous, and it's basically they're using
• 39:26
  this to set it up so that when it needs more liquidity, the government can step in and just
• 39:31
  open the floodgates and give it more liquidity. Is essentially what you're saying there,
• 39:35
  they'll use the national security thing as a narrative, but really this is all going to be
• 39:39
  about the economy. Yes. Yeah. That makes sense to me. You know, when you look at, like you sound
• 39:44
  very positive on AI and so am I, like, I think it's incredible. I think it will drive so much
• 39:48
  productivity. It makes like, it democratizes intelligence essentially. Do you look at it as
• 39:54
  like a utopian view or can you see the argument for like the dystopia of it and the control system?
• 40:00
  Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are definite downsides to this. We can create a dystopia. And, you know, I think about all the things, like look at Palantir is a great example, right? Palantir uses AI to get the bad guys who are anti-American.
• 40:16
  And it does, if you're in a war with the country, you want Palantir on your side, right?
• 40:22
  You want them to go and have use AI to figure out what people are going to do and say and think and how to stop cybersecurity events and, you know, to go get the bad guys and pinpoint where they are.
• 40:34
  So that's awesome if you're in a war and you have them on your side.
• 40:38
  now what about though if if that same technology gets used against you and what if china has a
• 40:43
  palantir coming at us and knows exactly where we're going to be and what we're going to say
• 40:47
  and how to take us out and what if china can like somehow like send in a million drones to the u.s
• 40:53
  lethal drones and just you know go out and take out their primary targets like well that would
• 40:58
  really suck right and so like this is how the world is changing and and so we have to be prepared
• 41:03
  from an offensive standpoint and from a defensive standpoint.
• 41:07
  And I hate both of it.
• 41:08
  I don't like thinking of either, but that's how the world does work, right?
• 41:11
  I want to be like, I want to have a peaceful world
• 41:12
  and I want to help create like a better world, a utopia,
• 41:16
  even though I don't really believe in utopia on earth.
• 41:17
  But that's the goal I'm looking for, an abundance mentality,
• 41:22
  a better world mentality.
• 41:24
  But there's bad guys and there's good guys on either side
• 41:27
  that are battling each other.
• 41:28
  And so we have to figure out how to navigate in between.
• 41:30
  Yeah, one of the little hints of dystopia here in Australia, one of the big supermarkets,
• 41:35
  Coles, uses Palantir technology to like track people in the store, which is
• 41:39
  It's just so gross.
• 41:41
  Like, I understand you want to stop pickpocketing,
• 41:43
  but I don't want to be trapped by Palantir
• 41:44
  every time I go into the supermarket.
• 41:46
  Right.
• 41:47
  This is the stuff I think people need to be aware of.
• 41:49
  Because I think if everyone knew the implications of that,
• 41:52
  I don't think anyone would like it.
• 41:53
  I just think people aren't aware of what's exactly happening.
• 41:56
  But at the same time, right?
• 41:57
  If you're in a life or death situation, though,
• 42:01
  you would be glad that you had it.
• 42:03
  So like-
• 42:03
  Yeah, that's true.
• 42:04
  If Palantir are using,
• 42:05
  they can prevent your family from getting murdered
• 42:08
  because some bad guys just drove into your neighborhood
• 42:09
  you'd be like, sweet, that was a good application. And so there's this constant tug and pull, right?
• 42:15
  Give and take between security and freedom. And so I see people like, you know, in America,
• 42:20
  they're chopping down the Flock cameras and they're all, you know, getting rid of those.
• 42:24
  And like, I side with that. But on the other hand, Flock will show you data that's like,
• 42:28
  crime goes way down in communities where they're being used, right? And so in China is just like,
• 42:32
  yeah, you know, because we have our massive surveillance system, we have like zero crime
• 42:37
  and blah, blah, blah, you know?
• 42:38
  And so it's just like,
• 42:39
  it's this give and take for everything.
• 42:42
  And if it affects you personally,
• 42:43
  you'll be really glad you had a police officer
• 42:45
  or a security camera or whatever,
• 42:48
  you know, on your side.
• 42:49
  But otherwise you don't want the,
• 42:51
  something to be taking away your freedom like that.
• 42:54
  Like it's disgusting and it's dystopian and it's terrible.
• 42:57
  And so that's just,
• 42:58
  that's what a day in the life of 2026 is.
• 43:01
  And that's only going to get worse as we go forward.
• 43:03
  Yeah, I'm going to butcher the quote,
• 43:04
  but I can't remember who it was that said,
• 43:06
  if you trade off freedom for security, you deserve neither.
• 43:09
  I think Ben Franklin, I think, said something like that.
• 43:12
  Yeah, or privacy maybe.
• 43:14
  And so, but we may not have a choice, right?
• 43:17
  If the internet is pervasive and AI is everywhere
• 43:20
  and surveillance is everywhere,
• 43:22
  and it pretty much is, you drive around town
• 43:24
  and there's cameras everywhere, right?
• 43:26
  Like there's no private public space anymore.
• 43:29
  And I would argue that even what we think are private spaces,
• 43:33
  our computers are not private.
• 43:34
  Like if people want to, if the government and Palantir want to use our own stuff against us that we think is private, like we're living in fantasy land right now.
• 43:43
  But so do you, so do you shut everything down and go live in the forest or in a cave or do you like deal with it?
• 43:49
  You know?
• 43:50
  And, and so that's what I, you were asking me about earlier, but like I, every day I change, like some days I want to be all in on like being online and doing these shows and talking on X about stuff.
• 44:01
  And then other days, I'm like, I want to just pull the cords out of everything, destroy everything and go live in the woods and, you know, live in a live in a cave somewhere and just get away from all this technology.
• 44:10
  It's just it's a love hate relationship.
• 44:13
  No, I feel that if we get this long economic recovery that you talk about, Bitcoin goes to a million dollars, I think I'll go and find a farm somewhere.
• 44:19
  Well, let me know where it is.
• 44:20
  I'll come join you.
• 44:22
  Yeah, you can be on the list of the people that know where it is.
• 44:24
  So in terms of this long economic recovery that you talk about, do you think that then,
• 44:32
  I know this is a very sort of small framing when we're talking just about Bitcoin here,
• 44:37
  but do you think that destroys the four-year cycle narrative that we've had for so long now?
• 44:41
  Well, first of all, if the four-year cycle narrative were still alive, we should have
• 44:45
  a bottom in October, right? That's historically what it's done is 12 months after the peak,
• 44:51
  we see the bottom. And so it looks like that's already destroyed. So, so, and Bitcoin loves to
• 44:57
  destroy its narratives that people just believe. Like it used to be that Bitcoin could never go
• 45:01
  lower than its previous all time high. And then it did that back in whatever, 2022. Um, so there,
• 45:07
  there are no rules. So it looks like from, you know, a technical standpoint that the bottom is
• 45:12
  already in. Um, so that part of the four-year cycle is dead. Like I said, we used to have
• 45:17
  four-year cycles, but I think, yes, it could have been based on the halving cycle, but it was also
• 45:24
  the presidential cycle. It was also the economic cycle and the manufacturing cycle in the U.S.
• 45:29
  and the liquidity cycles as well. They all were sort of in sync with each other.
• 45:34
  And COVID just changed everything. It just distorted all of these cyclical markets.
• 45:39
  And now we're seeing more and more government intervention in the markets. So a lot of people
• 45:47
  are very angry and sort of turning far left, like, you know, socialist, communist, because they think
• 45:51
  this dirty capitalist system is just terrible. And look what it's doing to America. And look how bad
• 45:55
  it is. Like, we do not have a free market capitalist system in America. We have a heavy government
• 46:00
  intervention system. And it's just being manipulated. And it's not just in the US,
• 46:04
  it's all around the world. So it's hard to say what's going to happen cyclically, because there's
• 46:09
  so much human intervention. And when they come in, when Besant comes in and does things, when the
• 46:13
  central banks come and do things, they just smash it like with this tidal wave of liquidity or with,
• 46:18
  you know, the interest rates bombing them higher, lower, whatever. And that really distorts the
• 46:23
  markets and it takes away sort of the natural rhythm of these free markets. And so it's just
• 46:28
  impossible to predict. And then when you throw in things like, you know, war, geopolitical tensions,
• 46:34
  things like that, it just also changes the dynamics of everything. I just think it's very,
• 46:39
  very difficult to predict.
• 46:41
  Okay.
• 46:41
  So before we move on,
• 46:43
  I've got two things
• 46:44
  I want to bring up with you.
• 46:45
  Is there anything in terms of
• 46:47
  like what you seeing in the economy right now that you want to cover Well I guess the main thing would be what we touched on is like I very bullish I think at least from the US perspective
• 46:57
  things are looking good. I see a lot of people who are freaking out about things and they're
• 47:01
  talking about how these higher interest rates, you know, are going to destroy the economy. And
• 47:06
  I understand what they're saying. But for me, I believe that these long-term treasury rates are
• 47:15
  result of future growth and inflation expectations. Inflation expectations are actually kind of under
• 47:21
  wraps right now. They're not too serious. And so basically what the long end is pricing in,
• 47:27
  I think, is mostly economic growth. And I think what we're starting to see is, look, we're going
• 47:31
  to have a boom in our economy and all of this stuff that the groundwork is being laid, the
• 47:36
  capital expenditures are being spent right now, the buildings are being built, and we're going to
• 47:41
  have, I think, a boom in manufacturing and a boom in the economy heading forward. And that's,
• 47:45
  to me, that's just very bullish for Americans in general and for the Western world in general.
• 47:50
  Let's go. Okay. So in previous shows, we've talked about two things that I want to do a
• 47:54
  check-in on. One of them being the S&P chart in gold. I don't know if you have that there,
• 47:59
  but this is something that you've been sort of playing with a lot. What's that looking like?
• 48:03
  Yeah, let me pull it up. I just posted it on Twitter not that long ago.
• 48:08
  So I will say, by the way, one thing everybody brings up every time I post it is they get upset because it's not including dividends.
• 48:16
  And there actually is a chart that shows the S&P 500 including dividends, but it only goes back to 1988.
• 48:26
  And so the thing I like about the chart that I show using TradingView is that it goes all the way back into the late 1800s.
• 48:36
  So it's just much more comprehensive. And it doesn't look and for the people who bring this up to me, just so you know, it doesn't really look very different. Like, yes, dividends do matter. It's good to reinvest your dividends. But it doesn't really make the chart look any different. It just barely like moves things over just a little bit to the right. So so that's that's it's a good point to bring up, but it doesn't really matter.
• 48:57
  So what I posted recently on Twitter is, you know, we have our normal peaks. And I like to look at where the S&P 500 priced in gold is today, based on the fact that it's on the decline. So meaning we've the S&P 500 has peaked in gold terms, and is starting to fall and you can look at momentum indicators to show that it's clearly on the descent.
• 49:22
  And so a lot of people would be like, well, it might just spike up again.
• 49:25
  And that's true.
• 49:26
  But in general, momentum begets momentum.
• 49:29
  And so as things roll over, they tend to continue rolling over until there's a completion.
• 49:33
  Okay, so what this chart shows, and I just love this chart.
• 49:37
  And every once in a while, I like to look at this to get myself grounded as a fund manager
• 49:41
  with what's going on.
• 49:43
  What I'm showing is, okay, this first peak back here in, can you see it when I put my,
• 49:48
  here's my arrow.
• 49:49
  Yeah, I can see that.
• 49:50
  Yeah.
• 49:50
  Okay, so here in 1929, where we are today, we're sitting at 1.74. That's where I have this chart. And actually, the price today is at 1.76, slightly above this. This is the chart I just shared on X a couple days ago, so that's why it's slightly off, but it's basically the same.
• 50:06
  So the first thing to note is there's multiple peaks.
• 50:09
  There's one here in 29.
• 50:10
  There's one here in about 1968.
• 50:12
  There's a third in 1999.
• 50:15
  And then a fourth happened here in late, basically December of 2021.
• 50:21
  And what I show, so I took the price away.
• 50:24
  So you don't see the actual price because that kind of muddies up the chart.
• 50:26
  We have two trend lines.
• 50:27
  The black line is the 15-month moving average, and this yellow gold line is the 50-month moving average.
• 50:34
  And the only reason I do that is it helps you to see trends much more easily.
• 50:37
  And it shows you that once you break a trend, like here back in the early 2020s, it basically
• 50:43
  holds that trend all the way until it peaks and then rolls over.
• 50:47
  And then in 1929-
• 50:48
  Yeah, the 1920s dies.
• 50:49
  Yeah, exactly.
• 50:49
  Exactly.
• 50:50
  And so why do I bring this up?
• 50:52
  Because we have these long periods where when this chart is going up into the right, that
• 50:58
  means that US stocks are doing well in general.
• 51:01
  So, and I term that we're seeing increased financialization. So banks are doing well,
• 51:07
  the economy is doing well. We're seeing, you know, basically financial products are doing well. That's
• 51:13
  the time you'd want to work on Wall Street, you want to borrow money and put it all in stocks,
• 51:18
  you know, put it in tech stocks, things like that. And then when it rolls over, that's basically when
• 51:22
  you've reached a peak of financialization. And now you want to get into hard assets. So things like
• 51:28
  gold tend to do well, you know, real estate traditionally has done well, base metals,
• 51:33
  other things, silver does well, those kinds of things. And those, and it's not just for like a
• 51:38
  trade. It's not like a, a one month or a one year kind of thing. These usually can last for like 10
• 51:43
  to 15 years or so. And so where we are today at, you know, we're at 1.74 here on this chart. Here's,
• 51:50
  where's my arrow? 1.74 or today as we, as we're recording this, it's just slightly higher at 1.76.
• 51:56
  Why that matters is because the chart has recently peaked and is rolling over just like it was when we were at this level in late 1972 early 1973 People who are old enough may remember that time as being a pretty unpleasant time right The
• 52:11
  Nixon Watergate oil embargoes, long lines for gas. The Vietnam War was going on, very unpopular,
• 52:20
  just a tough time in the US and in the Western world in general. That was basically for that
• 52:26
  entire decade of the 70s, you would have much rather have been long gold and not in stocks and
• 52:32
  not in financial assets and definitely not in bonds because of the amount of debasement that
• 52:36
  went on. And then that bottom, basically late 70s, early 80s, we had another bottom. And then we had
• 52:42
  a huge wave that kind of started with Reagan and Paul Volcker and those kind of things. And basically,
• 52:46
  that was the new era of financialization that happened all the way until this massive peak at
• 52:51
  the end of the dot-com boom. That's when you just basically wanted to be in stocks and especially
• 52:56
  tech stocks and out of gold and hard assets. And then it rolled over, right? And it peaked and
• 53:02
  rolled over. And then it got to the level where we are basically today in the first quarter of 2008.
• 53:08
  Most people who were around in 2008 remember, man, that was when things were starting to look
• 53:11
  a little bit dicey. And the markets were still doing okay. But if you had your druthers, you
• 53:17
  would have much rather been out of stocks and just sitting in gold at that point. And then we know
• 53:22
  what happened after that. And then we had another bottom kind of like in the early, like 2011,
• 53:26
  2012 time. And then you wanted to get out of gold back into stocks. Okay. So that was a really long
• 53:31
  way to say we've recently rolled over in late 2021. And this trend line is now clearly heading
• 53:37
  lower again to where we are. So I'm not making predictions. I'm a fund manager. I'm an investment
• 53:43
  advisor. I can't say anything that would portend to the future, especially about securities, right?
• 53:47
  But based on this chart, it would suggest that we're going to see a period of outperformance again by gold, at least relative to stocks.
• 53:57
  Just a guess. I could be totally wrong. The chart could totally turn and go back up in the other direction.
• 54:02
  I can't predict the future. But if we were at this exact same point at other times during these past decades, you would have said, man, that would have been awesome if I would have known that.
• 54:13
  And I could have just gotten into more gold and gotten out of stocks and bonds.
• 54:16
  you would have been doing really well compared to your neighbors whose 401ks and IRAs were getting
• 54:21
  wrecked. And that's one more thing, by the way, is you can still have gains in these other assets.
• 54:27
  So you could actually see gains in the stock markets nominally and gains even in bonds,
• 54:33
  which I'd be surprised, but nominal gains. But when you factor in debasement, the amount of
• 54:39
  liquidity that's going to come in, the amount of government borrowing that's going to happen to
• 54:43
  build out all of these data centers to re-industrialize the United States,
• 54:49
  something has to get sacrificed. And my guess is that what gets sacrificed is the US dollar.
• 54:54
  And what that means is those of us who are holding dollars and holding dollar-based financial assets
• 54:59
  are going to get debased. And so your nominal returns might be fine, but your real returns,
• 55:06
  which include inflation, are probably not going to be good, at least based on what this chart
• 55:11
  suggests. So that's the whole point of this chart. And again, based on sort of historical
• 55:16
  performance, these are multi-year trends, like this would likely go deep into the 2030s.
• 55:21
  Yeah. Yeah. So, and usually the downtrend is a little shorter than the uptrend for whatever
• 55:25
  reasons, but I would, and it looks like it started at the end of 2021, early 2022. So I have sort of
• 55:30
  earmarked like 2030 to 2033 sort of timeframe, just to guess. But based on past cycles, I would
• 55:37
  say like in general if i had to pick either stocks or gold uh to hold between now and say 2031 i'd
• 55:45
  actually probably pick gold and just stay out of the stock market could be wrong i mean that's
• 55:50
  that's super interesting especially with this wave of ai that it still might not be the play
• 55:54
  yeah right and and the point is is here's how i look at it is if you can if you can spend your
• 56:02
  own money and build this out and get these huge rates of return, so like good ROIs, ROIC, return
• 56:09
  on invested capital, and you're just using cash flow, in general, you want to be in those kind
• 56:14
  of businesses. But when the good businesses like the hyperscalers like Amazon, Facebook, Google,
• 56:20
  Oracle, CoreWeave, when they have to borrow massive amounts of money because they don't have cash flow,
• 56:27
  that should be a little red flag to say like, okay, we're over-financializing this right now,
• 56:31
  especially when you see the government have to come in and bail it out because there's no more
• 56:36
  debt buyers for this stuff. And it's starting to look wobbly. You see the move index, which is the
• 56:43
  bond market volatility index start to increase. When you start seeing signs like that, those are
• 56:48
  red flags that maybe financialization has sort of peaked in the near term. And maybe you should
• 56:53
  consider hard assets like Bitcoin or gold or something similar. So not investment advice. I
• 56:59
  got to always be clear about that. But that's how I would interpret where we are today.
• 57:04
  The interesting thing here with Bitcoin is like, it's really only lived in this period of time
• 57:08
  where investing in high growth tech stocks was a good option like in terms of it actually having a real price and a real market If this flips well it already has flipped If this continues to be in this downtrend against hard assets it be really interesting to see what Bitcoin does and when the market starts pricing it not like a high growth tech stock and like a hard asset
• 57:28
  Exactly.
• 57:28
  Yeah, because so far, most people on Wall Street still consider Bitcoin to be like a software stock.
• 57:33
  And they're sort of right, right?
• 57:34
  It is software.
• 57:36
  You know, it's just a protocol.
• 57:37
  but so more people need to understand that it's a hard asset and that it's sound money and not a
• 57:44
  software stock so i agree with you so we don't know we don't have a historical precedent to compare
• 57:48
  if bitcoin is going to act like gold and other hard assets or is it going to act like software
• 57:51
  tech stocks we'll find out okay and the other thing that i want to check in on from previous
• 57:56
  shows is your three burner analogy which i really like and it's probably worth explaining exactly
• 58:01
  what that three burner analogy is for anyone that didn't hear our previous shows but explain what
• 58:05
  what that is and where we're at with it. So this is how I explain, at least conceptually in my head,
• 58:10
  like why do we get peaks and troughs in Bitcoin and how we get these big blow off tops in Bitcoin.
• 58:17
  So the way I look at the price of Bitcoin in a fiat currency, and let's just say dollars for ease.
• 58:22
  So imagine a big cauldron of soup. We'll call it Bitcoin stew sitting on your stove. It's a big
• 58:28
  cauldron. And underneath that cauldron, there are three gas burners. You can have electrical burners
• 58:33
  if that's your persuasion. Three burners. The way to get that pot boiling is you want to have
• 58:40
  all three burners really going. And so what I think gets the price of Bitcoin going are the
• 58:46
  three things. One is liquidity. Everybody knows about that now. Nobody used to talk about that
• 58:50
  up in 2021 until 2022, it started to get popular. But liquidity is number one. You have to have
• 58:56
  excess liquidity in the system with somewhere to go. Right now, it's all being funneled in one
• 59:00
  direction, but you have to have it spill over into other assets. And that's usually because of what
• 59:05
  central banks are doing. But also it can be a fiscal thing. It also can be just like a strong
• 59:11
  economy where banks are lending and creating new money. That can be a good source of liquidity as
• 59:17
  well. That's the traditional source of new money into the system. So that's burner number one.
• 59:21
  Burner number two is, and we've touched on this already, but basically what is the manufacturing
• 59:27
  sector of the world doing this, specifically of the United States. So is the US manufacturing PMI
• 59:33
  accelerating or is it decelerating? Does it look like it's peaked or not? When it's expanding and
• 59:40
  accelerating higher, that tends to correlate quite strongly with the directional moves of Bitcoin.
• 59:46
  So you want to see that burner. So when that is expanding, it's high and getting higher and
• 59:51
  stronger. In general, that's good for Bitcoin. That's burner number two. Burner number three
• 59:56
  then is leverage. This usually doesn't happen until you get to sort of late stages of a bull
• 1:00:00
  market. So basically when people are like, dang, I just doubled my money in Bitcoin, but if I would
• 1:00:04
  have used 10x leverage, right, I could make 20x my money. So people start getting that bull market
• 1:00:12
  zeal, that enthusiasm, the animal spirits, which are really stupid, by the way, and I really don't
• 1:00:17
  recommend that. In fact, nobody should use leverage as far as I'm concerned, but lots of people will.
• 1:00:21
  So when you have that adding on, when people start to really lever up their bets, and you'll notice that because you'll start hearing the crypto bros come out of the woodwork again.
• 1:00:29
  They'll start talking about how stupid you are for buying Bitcoin because you could buy this ridiculous proof of stake coin and make 100x your money.
• 1:00:37
  And you'll hear stories of people who have done that.
• 1:00:39
  And so it kind of gets the FOMO going.
• 1:00:41
  And so when you start feeling FOMO for other nonsense like penny stocks and crypto things and whatever, that's when you're starting to get a lot of leverage in the system.
• 1:00:51
  That's when that FOMO is starting to run hot.
• 1:00:53
  So those are the three burners.
• 1:00:54
  And those are when you get those three burners all kind of running on full blast at the end
• 1:00:59
  of a cycle.
• 1:01:00
  That's when you see that exponential hockey stick move higher in the price of Bitcoin.
• 1:01:03
  And that, by the way, is what we didn't have in the fourth quarter of 2025.
• 1:01:07
  We had good liquidity conditions, but the U.S. manufacturing sector was still contracting.
• 1:01:12
  It never took off.
• 1:01:13
  And then we also didn't have a lot of leverage.
• 1:01:15
  Like people just weren't really into it.
• 1:01:17
  There weren't animal spirits.
• 1:01:18
  There wasn't FOMO.
• 1:01:19
  And so there was a little bit of leverage, but not like just off the charts.
• 1:01:23
  So that burner was like kind of at low to medium.
• 1:01:27
  And then the economy, the burner number two, the manufacturing sector was basically turned
• 1:01:31
  off.
• 1:01:32
  And all we had was the liquidity one turned on.
• 1:01:34
  So that's why I think we had that kind of tepid bull market.
• 1:01:37
  And going forward, what I'm seeing getting set up is it looks like liquidity is supportive
• 1:01:42
  currently, and it's going to get more supportive as we go.
• 1:01:45
  And I think we'll have to have some sort of jolt to the system that causes the central banks and Besant to really come in and start sloshing the liquidity into the system.
• 1:01:56
  And then we already have the manufacturing sector.
• 1:01:58
  And I think this is going to it's built to last.
• 1:02:00
  So we're going to see years of a really strong manufacturing sector in the US.
• 1:02:04
  And then as that picks up and as the price of Bitcoin moves into six digits, gets new all time highs, goes above 150, hits like 200K, people are going to start piling on leverage at that point.
• 1:02:15
  exactly at the wrong time, of course, they're going to start piling late into the bull market.
• 1:02:19
  And that's when you have potential to see that hockey stick move higher. So those are the things
• 1:02:23
  I look for. If those three burners are going, I will be very, very bullish at that point. But then
• 1:02:27
  I'll also start to wonder, okay, we're going to be hitting a peak.
• 1:02:29
  pretty soon. So there's going to be a time to start turning cautious if we get that. And
• 1:02:33
  that's the three burner theory. So Bitcoin stew is simmering right now. We're not bubbling away,
• 1:02:40
  but it's looking good. We're simmering. Yep. But we're laying the groundwork for a strong
• 1:02:46
  bull market. And I would argue one that we haven't seen yet because the manufacturing burner number
• 1:02:52
  two has been so weak for so long and the foundation for it to just be really cranked hot.
• 1:02:59
  And I think Trump's just going to like say crank and Trump and Besson are all on board, right? They're like, we are going to grow this economy out of our debt. And they're going to try hard. And whether that's good or bad, people can debate about that. I don't care. I'm just sort of reading, you know, the room.
• 1:03:14
  if they really let that crank and they get liquidity flowing and just crank up the economy
• 1:03:19
  and like, you know, and Trump puts a leash on Warsh and says, no, you can't raise rates,
• 1:03:23
  don't raise rates or you're getting fired, you know, or whatever. We have the potential to see
• 1:03:27
  either an elongated or a very powerful move higher for the price of Bitcoin So I think most people are going to be surprised not to the downside this time but actually to the upside which will be the opposite of 2025
• 1:03:40
  I love it.
• 1:03:41
  It's been nice to do
• 1:03:42
  an optimistic, bullish show.
• 1:03:44
  It feels like it's been too long.
• 1:03:46
  But Jeff, I always,
• 1:03:48
  always love talking to you.
• 1:03:49
  Thank you, man.
• 1:03:49
  Appreciate the time.
• 1:03:50
  Thanks for having me on, Danny.
• 1:03:51
  I always love talking to you.
• 1:03:53
  Of course.
• 1:03:53
  Tell everyone where they can go
• 1:03:54
  to follow you.
• 1:03:55
  You're back on X now.
• 1:03:56
  So where can people find you?
• 1:03:57
  Yeah, I am for now.
• 1:03:58
  We'll see.
• 1:03:59
  Depending on the date,
• 1:04:00
  So my handle is at former Dr. Jeff.
• 1:04:03
  And then I run a little small friends and family hedge fund for accredited investors
• 1:04:07
  and a qualified client.
• 1:04:09
  So if that's you, you can reach out to me on Twitter X and we can talk about that.
• 1:04:14
  But yeah, otherwise, I try to just live my life and not be online too much.
• 1:04:20
  That's the way, man.
• 1:04:21
  Appreciate you, Jeff.
• 1:04:22
  Thank you.
• 1:04:23
  Thanks, Danny.
• 1:04:30
  Thank you.