Why "Crypto" Will Be DEAD In 10 Years

What's going on guys? Today we got a

great episode with John Pompiano. In

this conversation we get deep into the

details of what's going on with the DeFi

mullet. How stable coins are taking on

the traditional financial system. We

talk about the US China trade deal.

What's going to happen when Scott

Besson, Donald Trump, Howard Lick, and

the entire administration get that deal

done. Why investors are becoming very

bullish. How you should think about

Bitcoin and gold and the relationship of

a Bitcoin bull market going into the end

of the year. And then we end up talking

about White House asset management, how

they're very active in the market, what

that means for you as an American, and

what it means for markets. All that and

much more in my latest conversation with

John Pompiano. All right, John, what's

first topic?

>> All right, you had an excellent piece

this morning in the Pomp letter about

the DeFi mullet. What is the DeFi

mullet?

>> Well, I can't take credit for this. Uh,

I recently did an episode with Max

Bransburg, who is the head of consumer

business products at Coinbase. Uh, and

I, you know, I was looking forward to

the conversation, but then he dropped

this line on me. one uh it just is very,

you know, memorable. It's kind of

visually you can see like a mullet, uh

which is cool. Anyone who's got a mullet

usually is a pretty cool person. Uh

stick right out of the side of their

mouth. Uh but um when he was talking, he

basically described it as uh the easy

Coinbase experience on the front end,

the interface, the thing that you use

from a technology standpoint, but DeFi

in the back. And what it got me thinking

about is uh kind of the collision

between uh this crypto world, you know,

Bitcoin, stable coins, all this stuff

with the traditional financial system.

And historically, I think that

Bitcoiners and kind of the crypto

community thought that these were

parallel systems and in some way they

have been until recently. Uh but now

what we're seeing is the convergence.

And actually what we're finding is that

convergence between these two systems

means that one the crypto industry is

dead. It is rip see you later. Within a

decade you're not going to be hearing

people talk about crypto. Instead what

you're going to start hearing is people

talk about finance. And my example that

I used is let's take for example Black

Rockck. I keep saying is Black Rockck a

Bitcoin company? No one's describing as

that. They're just a financial

institution, right? Is Robin Hood a

crypto company? Well, nobody describes

them that way. They would talk about a

fintech, a neo bank, uh, you know,

brokerage business, whatever. But

they're starting to incorporate all of

this infrastructure. They're looking at

stable coins. They're going really hard

at tokenization, right? Prediction

markets are kind of crypto adjacent. All

that stuff is coming. So my point being

that whether you are a hardcore crypto

company uh or a crypto native firm like

a Coinbase uh you know Kraken, a Gemini,

a Binance, whatever you're trying to get

the legacy assets onto your platform. So

now you're looking at tokenized

securities and stuff like that. If

you're one of these fintexs, what you're

trying to do is you're trying to sit

with uh we want a digital native

experience for people who uh you know

want to use these kind of new types of

products, but we also want the legacy

system. We want crypto assets and public

equities and prediction markets all to

sit in the same place. The legacy guys

are the most interesting to me because

they have really big customer bases.

They have trust. They're not new.

They've been around for, you know,

hundred years some of them. Uh and then

they because they have that

distribution, they can rip out their

plumbing, change it into this new

decentralized or kind of cryptocentric

stuff. And if the interface stays, you

know, business in the front, party in

the back, the business in the front, the

interface stays the same. people don't

even know. And so if you really think

about use stable coins as an example to

use a stable coin today, you have to

understand what a wallet is. You have to

understand how wallet addresses work.

You have to in many most cases copy and

paste a wallet address, check it. Your

heart pumps a little bit like let's make

sure I don't mess this up. Maybe send a

test transaction. Sometimes you have to

decide which network am I going to send

it on. Am I going to go with Ethereum or

Salana? Am I making sure that the wallet

matches the blockchain that I'm going to

use? All that's cra that's insane.

That's like dialup internet stuff,

right? No one is going to do that. There

is nobody in the real world outside of

the crypto industry that wants to do any

of that. What they want to do is they

want to send, receive, and hold dollars.

I don't want to hear about stable coin.

I just want to know dollars. Guess what?

Nobody calls them electronic dollars in

your bank account. They just call them

dollars. There's no delineation between

physical dollars and electronic dollars.

They're just dollars. Right now, we

still have a delineation between

electronic dollars and digital dollars

or stable coins. So, if you go all the

way back to 2017, uh I used to say two

things that uh I I said a lot and then I

realized it was going to take a lot

longer, but I now think now's the right

time. Let me bring it back from the

archives. I used to say tokenize the

world. And people would be like, "What

does that mean? Uh it's all Bitcoin

blah." And my point to them was Bitcoin

is the first asset from the legacy

system that we have tokenized. Now, it

is a cryptonative asset because we

didn't take like gold, put it into an

SPV and tokenize the shares in an SPV.

All we simply did is we said we're going

to create another asset that is digital

native that has sound money principles

outside the system. No one can create

more gold. Bam. Uh Bitcoin comes along

two three trillion dollar asset. We're

winning. Great. Second is now stable

coins. Nobody thinks that stable coins

are controversial in terms of violating

the ethos of Bitcoin, right? I don't

hear anyone being like, "Oh, look at

these coins." All they're talking

about is stable coins. So, we took

dollars and we digitized them. If you

look at the transformation of financial

markets, we had analog assets. We had

physical dollars. We had physical stock

certificates. We had physical deeds to

your home, right? We had physical bonds.

Used to go used to literally, right? It

used to be a thing. You would put it in

your filing cabinet. It's crazy. Then we

transitioned to an electronic world and

every physical asset became an

electronic QIP. Those electronic cusips

now get whipped around these centralized

databases and that is what we know as

finance today. So there was an analog

era that transitioned to an electronic

era. If you go back and you look at

things I wrote almost a decade ago now,

I talked about we are on the precipice

of a change where we went from analog to

electronic. We're now going to go from

electronic to digital. I was really off

on the timing. I thought that stuff was

going to happen in like 2018, 2019,

2020. It's now 2025 going into 2026 and

we're now just starting to see early

signs of it. So, it took almost a half

decade longer than I thought, but it's

okay. It's here. And so, what we're now

going to see is every single one of

these electronic assets going to

transition into a digital asset. So,

you're going to see stocks, bonds,

currencies, and commodities all get

tokenized. But the thing that people

don't realize coming out of the hardcore

crypto world where there's lots of uh

tribalism and controversy and

shitcoining and all that kind of stuff

is this is just taking the exact same

asset that already exists and it is just

changing the form factor someone's going

to hold it. So rather than have a

physical stock certificate or an

electronic stock certificate or a share,

you're now going to have a digital one.

It's still a stock certificate. So you

have to underwrite the underlying asset

itself. Is this good company? Is it a

bad company? Am I being diluted? Do I

have a claim on cash flows? Am I going

to get dividends or not? All that stuff

is actually the analysis. The problem

with the like shitcoin world has been

that you had the new technology, the new

form factor, but the thing that was

underlying it really didn't have any

value. And so what people were doing is

they were getting excited about the

technology and they were forgetting to

analyze the underlying value. Well, if

it's valueless, then it doesn't matter

what form factor, right? If you put 0

plus 0, still zero, right? And so I

think now what we're seeing is real

assets, right? Things that actually have

value that have been determined by the

market stocks bonds currencies and

commodities, they're going to get

digitized. And so you go back to this

idea of this DeFi mullet. What you're

going to see is you are going to see an

explosion of these assets on your

traditional platforms. So you use

Charles Schwab, you use Vanguard, you

use Robin Hood, Public, Weeble, E Toro,

you use Coinbase, you use Venmo or

PayPal, you use Cash App, name your

service. You are going to start to see

these companies make announcements about

embracing stable coins, tokenized

securities, tokenized bonds, all that

stuff. But the actual experience for the

user is not going to change. And that's

a good thing because that is really

means that the technology is working.

Right? If we are still describing the

crypto industry in 10 years, we didn't

make progress, right? What we need is we

need the crypto industry to infiltrate

finance and it just needs to be finance.

It needs to be exchanges. Coinbase in in

the interview with Max, they're talking

about being the everything exchange.

Amazon, the everything store. These guys

want to be the everything exchange. They

want to be able to trade public stocks,

crypto. Probably want to do like real

estate stuff, tokenized, you know,

assets, whatever. Prediction markets,

everything gets traded on one exchange.

Guess what? ICE, New York Stock

Exchange, NASDAQ, CBOE, all those. What

do you think they want to do? They would

love to be able to do prediction

markets, tokenized securities,

traditional securities, all the bonds,

right? Crypto. It's like that is where

everyone is headed. And so I think that

we are going to go through a complete

revolution in really boring nerd

infrastructure. I think for the

consumer, all they're going to see is

things got faster and cheaper. That's

how technology adoption works. And I

think uh we are like right on the edge

now. You're going to start seeing some

of the stuff hit. And as it hits, you're

going to start realizing, wait a minute,

I can get higher yield. Wait a minute, I

can trade on weekends. Wait a minute, I

can actually be outside the United

States without a bank account, and I can

now start to earn yield via a

yieldbearing stable coin. Right? Wait a

minute, I can store my economic value in

an asset that has sound money principles

that seems to benefit from the

debasement of the currency, aka Bitcoin.

Right? that whole transition over the

next 10 years or so means that the

digital natives, they're just early to

what the rest of the world's going to be

using. And I think it's very very

bullish for the companies that are

embracing this stuff.

>> So, you had another line in your letter

about the idea that like people won't

know the difference between

centralization and decentralization

moving forward. What did you really mean

by that?

>> Well, right now Coinbase, I just use

them as as the example we've been

talking about. Coinbase has a

centralized exchange. They also have

centralized services, right? things,

lending, etc. Uh, they are

simultaneously embracing

decentralization.

And so, in the Coinbase app, remember

DeFi mullet, business in the front,

party in the back. The business in the

front is the interface is Coinbase. You,

if you trust Coinbase, you trust it

regardless of what service you're using

on there. But on the back end, the quote

unquote party, they may be having a

centralized infrastructure for some

products. They may have decentralized

services or infrastructure for some

products. They may actually offer the

same service and there's a centralized

version and a decentralized version and

you may not even know what the

difference is other than they tell you

well you can earn 3% here or you can

earn 5% here and the way that they're

getting the 5% is because there's

decentralization there's lower cost

there's more liquidity pool whatever

right so that to me is why people are

ultimately not going to even know

whether it's centralized or

decentralized a great example is how

many people use the internet every

single day and could name the four or

five protocols that make the internet

work.

Maybe someone if you went to like a bar,

right, and you, you know, you do like on

the street interview and you ask people

what are the five protocols, maybe

somebody could pull out of their headd,

right? Maybe because they typed it once

or twice in their life, right? But

outside of that, like it's just not

something that people understand. They

don't need to understand it. All they

need to be able to do is go to

google.com and type in a box, right? And

eventually they're going to have a

computer in their brain where they just

think about it and they get the answer.

They don't care about protocols. They

don't care about infrastructure. They

don't care about all this stuff. Let

somebody else solve that stuff. Just get

me something that's better, cheaper, and

faster. And that's what's going to

happen in finance.

>> I'd be I'd go far as to say that if you

ask people what www stood for, most

people wouldn't know. I

>> I think people would just be like, "Oh,

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to upgrade your retirement today. Let's

talk about the difference between the

stable coins themselves. So there's

USDC, there's USDT, and there's a few

other ones as well. Uh I have noticed

through talking with different people

that USDC extremely popular

domestically. USDT is actually extremely

popular internationally. Why is there a

difference and like should there be a

difference moving forward and like how

are people thinking about this?

>> Well, I think that in most industries

what you get is when there's

competition, people take different goto

market strategies. They position

themselves differently. They try to go

after different customers, right? It's

all kind of a corporate strategy at the

end of the day. And honestly, some

people are optimizing for different

things, right? Some people may be

optimizing for uh profits today. Other

people may be optimizing for equity

value. uh some people may be optimizing

for short-term versus long term, right?

This is kind of classic corporate

strategy competition uh in the business

world. Um I do believe that Tether is

the king and will remain the king for a

very long time, right? So I think that

uh USDC is a very formidable competitor

in terms of coming onto the scene uh and

being able to build a business and use

kind of their strategy, but Tether was

first. That first mover advantage is

really hard to uh to uh un um unseat.

And also, you know, frankly, I don't

think that people really give enough

credit to Gian Carlo and Paulo and the

team at Tether. Like, these guys are the

definition of competitors. And it's not

just about were they early, were they

the first to kind of find product market

fit, but they have kept their foot

slammed to the gas pedal and they are

not going to relent. And so, it's really

hard to compete with somebody like that.

Now I do think that generally what you

have seen is USDC has said well we're

going to go and be a highly regulated

domesticbased domestic serving stable

coin and USDC. Now what they did to do

that was they created the stable coin

and then they struck a partnership with

Coinbase and they basically said why

don't we get mass distribution via

partnership. Well if you are going to

partner with somebody in that way you've

got to give up some of the economics.

And so I forget the exact split between

Circle and Coinbase, but if I remember

correctly, I think actually Coinbase

takes more of the economics than Circle

does on the interest that comes from

USDC or it's at least close.

Tether said, "Well, the world's pretty

big. There's only 330 million Americans.

There's 8 billion people in the world.

Why don't we go and find the people

where stable coins can have the biggest

impact?" So, if you think of the United

States, like the dollar works pretty

well. If I go to the ATM, I get my money

out. If I want to send a bank wire, it's

annoying. It costs a little bit of

money, but I can I can get it done. I

can do an a direct deposit, all all

these things, right? It works to a

general sense, and I have access to

dollars already. So, all you're doing is

you're making a a slight upgrade. And

the delta between using the legacy

system versus the new system. There's a

delta. It's just smaller than, let's

say, somebody who has no access to

dollars at all.

>> If you're in Turkey using the Libra,

>> if you're in name a country, if you

don't have access to dollars, getting

access to dollars is usually a pretty

good upgrade. And that delta is pretty

fat, right? And so that's what Tether's,

you know, main strategy has been is they

have ran around the world and they have

basically said, "We have US dollars and

put on these digital rails. We can have

a massive profound impact on your

financial life." And the market spoke. I

think the latest numbers are Tether has

more than 400 million people that use

Tether and they're growing at something

like 30 million new users per quarter,

right? Right. I mean, that is bonkers

numbers, right? That would put you on

par with something that like I don't

think it's growing quite as fast as like

an open AI with chat GPT, but it's like

up there with that level of growth

technologies

>> 100%. Right? Like social networks would

be jealous of that type of growth. And

so when you see that, you say, okay,

like Tether has product market fit and

do they have some distribution stuff?

I'm sure, but they don't have like one

main distribution partner where there's

a big split of economics and things like

that. So they have really gone for let's

go outside the United States. Let's go

find where the biggest delta is. Let's

serve those customers and have this kind

of financial inclusion. Now from a

United States standpoint, we should love

Tether, right? I've said multiple times

that I think that the guys at Tether,

they're essentially American heroes. Who

else do you know who has gone around the

world and created more adoption of the

US dollar has extended the uh Americans

way of life as having the US dollar as a

global reserve currency in the way that

Tether has? almost nobody, right? And so

from that standpoint, that is quote

unquote heroic for America for us to

continue to have dollar dominance

extended in that manner. So I think

that's great. I also think that USDC,

there's USDE, right? There's uh all

these different things. Now, what I do

find very interesting is all of a sudden

the government gets involved and the

government has now created uh via the

Genius Act regulation.

Most people know I'm not the biggest fan

of uh the government doing this. they're

interfering in a free market, right? And

they're saying, "Oh, we have to create

rules." So, the idea originally was that

this regulation was going to kingmake

some people and it was going to hurt

other people. Thankfully, because of the

way that the system goes, both the

domestic and the international type

players all came together and they were

able to work through that system. There

was, you know, pretty uh uh tough

conversations there from what I

understand. I mean, there was a lot of

jockeying who was going to get what

rules written in whatever, but I think

we got to a pretty good place. I think

everyone's like okay with where it is. I

don't think anyone walked away and was

like I got a great deal. I don't think

anyone walked away and was like I got

screwed right. Um what we see is the

USbased regulated stable coins, they

kind of fit within that box. So they're

already kind of ready to rock and roll.

Now what we're seeing though is let's

take something like a which is Tether's

response to that regulation. They're

launching an Americanbased version of

the stable coin. Uh and they went and

they got Bo Hines who was the you know

cryptozar inside of the white house and

they said why don't you be the CEO.

you again go back to these guys aren't

playing around, right? This is like a

fullthroat competition. And so what I do

think is a part of this conversation

that a lot of people are not yet uh kind

of ready to to talk about is today

everyone is looking at stable coins and

they're look Tether amazing business.

The profit per employee is like the

highest ever, right? These guys are

awesome. All true. But if you want to

compete, guess what you have to do? You

got to give up some of your economics.

You got to pay your way into the market.

And so you start to share those

economics. Now all of a sudden your

margins get squeezed, right? And I'm not

going to say it's a race to the bottom,

but it's definitely a degradation of

economic value that can get captured by

the stable coin uh provider. So now what

you're seeing is uh V2 of the

competition where every single stable

coin provider is now running around

saying, "Wait a second, if we're going

to have a degradation of economics at

the stable coin level, let's go compete

at who can actually own the chain that

these all uh are transacted on." And so

if you look just look over the last

three or four months, Stripe announced

Tempo, Circle announced ARC, Tether

announced Plasma and many other

investments that they made. Game on. Now

we're going to have a blockchain war

over who can have the, you know,

blockchain for stable coins. And so why

do they want to do that? Well, there's

economics to be captured there. And so

maybe actually what happens is what if

you could just give away all of your

economics from the interest that's being

earned off of treasuries and instead you

make money by owning the chain. I'm not

saying that's going to be the final

business model, but like this is what's

happening. This is in real time all

evolving. And so it kind of comes back

to this idea of okay, stable coins are

going to be this cryptonative thing.

Amazing. We're going to see that battle

play out. But guess what? Now it's like

uh a bunch of the children were all

arguing with each other. Now the adults

showed up and they're standing there and

they're saying, "What y'all playing?

Maybe we should play over there. Y'all

want to come be on my team?" And now all

of a sudden the adults are drafting the

kids onto their different teams. Like

Thanksgiving, you know, you go play

backyard football, right? All of a

sudden the dads start playing and they

start picking which kid they think is

most athletic, right? Well, same thing's

happening now because now City, JP

Morgan, right? Bank of America, all

these guys, Visa, they're all say,

"Whoa, hold on a second. We're not going

to get left out of this, right?" And so,

as that starts to play out, you just saw

Coinbase announce a partnership with

City. In that partnership, uh they

basically are saying, "We're going to

make it easier to on and off ramp people

to uh for institutional clients to get

in and out of crypto." Makes sense,

right? AUS, right? They've kind of

talked about this whole idea of can they

go partner with different financial

institutions. Uh I think you're going to

see Circle go directly make these

partnerships as well. And so what you

are watching is you are watching the

like tectonic plates of finance shift

right now and everyone's trying to

figure out where are they going to end

up and there's a little bit of musical

chairs like everyone grab a partner

right but there's also a little bit of

direct competition and there's also some

business strategy into it. So it's

fascinating the reason why all this is

happening is because there's probably in

my estimation about a trillion dollars

of value up for grabs. Who who wants it?

Everybody wants it. And that's why

you're seeing, you know, kind of the

competition and and the developments

that you're seeing. And so it just goes

back to DeFi mullet, right? You are

going to be using stable coins at some

point in the next 10 years and you're

not even going to realize it. All you

know is you're moving dollars. And

that's actually probably a good thing

that that is how the technology gets

adopted. It is not like all of a sudden

we go teach grandma how to, you know,

buy a coffee with a stable coin. Grandma

don't even know how to spell stable

coin. She's like, "What are y'all

talking about?" All she's saying is, "I

want to use dollars. Stop talking to me

about all this technology stuff." Right?

That is where the world's headed and I

think that the people who have that

interface and have the the trust and the

connection with the user, they're the

ones who are going to end up having a

big advantage.

>> I'm glad you ended on that point because

I have a quote from somebody that I want

you to hear and I want your reaction to

it.

>> Oh, great.

>> So, the Western Union CEO, we all know

Western Union, we that held the funeral

forum back

said, "Last I checked, you couldn't

spend stable coins if you wanted to buy

a Coca-Cola." So, what is the real use

case? Repeat that again. Last I checked,

you couldn't spend stable coin if you

wanted to buy a Coca-Cola.

>> Did Paul Krugman say that?

>> You know who Paul Krugman is? Paul

Krugman is a famous economist who's been

really wrong his whole career. But uh

Paul Krugman uh is famous for saying uh

the internet doesn't really have any use

cases more than a fax machine, right?

He's like, yeah, he basically dismissed

it in like the late 90s. Looks like a

just absolute like one of the worst

takes of all time. like uh you know the

cold freezing cold takes like Paul

Krugman is in the Hall of Fame for that

one. Um I'm sure he's a nice guy. No

disrespect. Uh but uh this guy I think

this guy's name is uh Devin uh like uh

something. Um so do you remember in 2021

you, me, and our brother Joe, we held

that uh funeral for Western Union for

for the OGs out there who've been

watching our content for a long time. We

held a funeral for Western Union. And

you know, every once in a while, I I

don't like to dance on graves. I don't

like to, you know, take a victory lap,

but I'm going to do it right now. Um,

that funeral, if you go and you look at

the 5-year performance of Western Union

stock, bam, down 54%.

I'm not saying, but I'm saying I mean,

we pretty much nailed it. Right now, we

probably were having a little bit of fun

and just a tiny bit of analysis back

then, right? But it was very obvious

like you have this legacy uh world with

legacy technology that is oblivious to

what is happening. Now again I do know

that Western Union CEO has also said

they see stable coins as an opportunity

not a threat. So it's kind of like

you're talking out of two sides of your

mouth, right? Is it an opportunity or do

you think no one uses it to buy

Coca-Cola? Because it can't be both,

right? Either you think it's an

opportunity or you don't. But you sound

like Paul Krugman on one side and then

you sound like somebody who's got a 16-y

old kid who told you, "Hey, start

talking good about stable coins. Maybe

the stock price will recover, right? You

got to make a choice." And I find that

when people have one foot in, one foot

out, they screwed. So if you're down 54%

during one of the most historic stock

market runs in history, what do you

think's going to happen? It's probably

going to keep going down. Those

businesses are in big, big trouble. And

it's because they were very extractive.

They use antiquated technology. And this

new technology disrupts them, rips them

out of the system. Is it a direct attack

on their uh revenue? And you have people

who don't understand the importance of

the technology. It's classic innovators

dilemma. And so my guess is that Western

Union, we can have like a a

reincarnation funeral for them cuz they

if we talk about this in 5 years,

they're probably going to be in a bad

situation then too.

>> Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit.

Talk about Bitcoin. Vance Spencer had a

great chart on Twitter talking about the

idea that as gold runs up, Bitcoin

stayed flat in 2020. Gold obviously saw

a draw down there and then Bitcoin had a

massive run. Uh we're in a similar setup

here for 2025. Do you see something

similar happening moving forward? The

data is not perfect, but 2020, just for

people to understand, um gold basically

peaked and then it cooled, right? So

gold had this big runup kind of ran

first and if you remember, let me set

the scene in 2020. Um, if you go back to

March of 2020, uh, asset prices sold off

aggressively because there was a

liquidity crisis. I think March 12th was

the big day that Bitcoin went down 50%.

I was curled up on the couch. This don't

feel too good. Uh, but then all of a

sudden, here comes the monetary bazooka,

right? Trump was out there posting away

on social media. You had uh the Fed

stepping in. You had uh fiscal policy.

They were printing trillions of dollars.

I remember tweeting saying, "You can't

print trillions of dollars and not get

inflation." And people were like,

"You're an idiot. you don't know

inflation is transitory all this stuff

right obviously what happened is we got

this massive recovery and everything

took off now when that occurred gold

actually was the global alarm system

gold ran first and you can pontificate

as to why my guess is probably people

were trained hey money printing gold

runs but there was two people who came

out in 2020 and they pretty much started

the Wall Street adoption of these assets

uh Stanley Ducken Miller and Paul Tudtor

Jones, they both came out and at

different times said some effect of we

we like it and we own it talking about

Bitcoin.

>> Two legends.

>> Two legends, right? And if I remember

correctly, Stanley Ducken Miller said

that in 2018 uh he called up uh PTJ and

he basically uh they were talking I

can't remember who said it to who, but

one of them said, "Yo, you know these

maniacs, 85% of them that owned it at

$20,000 a coin, they're still holding it

at 3,000." And I think it was like PTJ

said that to Duck and Duck was like,

"I'm buying." And he just, you know, he

just went in. He was like, "Yo, these

guys are maniacs." I'll continue to say

it. Stanley Duck and Miller is my

favorite investor. Why? He's basically a

retail investor just with the GOAT track

record, right? Like the guy he buys,

then he researches, right? If he's got

conviction, he goes all in, right? And

so, um, he ended up buying. Now, wait

until 2020 and then he came out and he

said he owned it. Paul Tudtor Jones was

on CNBC and he had a famous line. He

said he believes Bitcoin is going to be

the fastest horse. That got a lot of

headlines. That got a lot of attention.

Whatever. Gold runs first. Bitcoin kind

of hung out around $10,000, $8,000,

somewhere in that range. All of a

sudden, the gold run got exhausted.

There was now not as much demand because

so many people have been buying gold.

And you had gold kind of turn over and

cool off a little bit. Still great,

right? It was good inflation hedge. But

once that turnover happened and you

start the cooling off of gold, Bitcoin

then that was pretty much the inflection

point. Bam. Here we go. And we went from

10,000 to 64,000 in less than 6 months.

Game time. It was awesome. We all had a

lot of fun. Now we have a very similar

setup. Gold is up significantly. It's up

over 50% in 2025. People are like, "Wow,

that was crazy." But it looks like it's

peaked and starting to cool off now. And

all of a sudden, you're now starting to

see Bitcoin get a little bit of momentum

to it. And so the question is or what

people are insinuating is is there some

relationship where once gold runs first

and then it peaks and starts to cool is

that the catalyst for the Bitcoin right

the great rotation from gold to Bitcoin.

Um I did hear a pretty interesting

anecdote. Um I uh I I have heard I I

don't know how to confirm this, but I

have heard that uh there are people who

are showing up in like the diamond

district here in New York with all kinds

of jewelry and stuff that like gold

jewelry because now all of a sudden

it's, you know, $4,200 an ounce and

they're just turning it in and there's

like lines and stuff. I don't know if

this true like we'll have to find

somebody to try to uh confirm this but

uh that would signal to me the gold run

you know people are like turning in the

gold right in order to get dollars um

then you basically just get the satisi

uh satisfication of uh of the demand and

so if that's the case and Bitcoin runs

from here um it' be a repeat of 2020 I

don't like to extrapolate off of you

know kind of one single data point um

but when you line the charts up it looks

awesome like you know it looks like

Bitcoin will go up um so let's see what

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Okay. Well, looks like everything is

about to go up given that Trump and the

Chinese president Xi Jingping, I think I

said that correctly.

>> N how do you say Xi Jinping?

>> Xi Jinping. All right. Well, Xi Jinping

and Trump are going to meet in South

Korea later this week. Oh, I'm

definitely not trying to upset him. Um,

markets go up given that the uncertainty

is kind of settling down. The tariff

wars are kind of settling down a little

bit. Do you generally agree with that

sentiment that like as every as they

meet, you know, trade negotiations are

kind of finally settled, market should

go up?

>> Well, um, there's a couple things that,

uh, are worth talking about here. So,

one, investors like clarity, right? Uh

it's kind of like um you know in

entrepreneurship I always say uh

entrepreneurs

they care what the rules are but more

importantly they just care that you tell

them what the rules are right if you

tell them what the rules are then they

can figure out what they're going to do

right entrepreneurs are problem solvers

give them a problem tell them what the

rules are they'll go and they'll try to

solve the problem uh investors are very

similar they have a preference for what

the environment will be monetary policy

interest rates uh geopolitical trade you

know negotiation outcomes all this like

they have a preference But if you just

tell them here's what it's going to be

moving forward, then they can adjust

their portfolio. What is really hard for

an investor is uncertainty. So is the US

China trade deal going to get done? What

are the details? Right? Are we going to

get 100% tariffs le? I mean like as soon

as you get into the uncertainty world,

it's really hard to invest. And so you

end up being a little bit gunshy in

deploying capital. Um I do think that

there is a very interesting dynamic

where it makes great headlines. Talk

about the decoupling. China and the US

are going to lessen dependence on each

other, but get out of here. The United

States needs China, China needs the US.

Now, that may change over time. Both

countries would love to decouple. They

these guys are working their butts off

to try to decouple, right? America, we

want to reshore. We want to bring back a

manufacturing. We want to lessen our

dependence on China. We think that, you

know, their ship building and their

earth controls and all this. Like, we

are at their throats in terms of our

dependence and how do we get some sort

of negotiating leverage. By the way,

they're the same. They have been heavily

trying to lessen their dependence on us

as consumers. Now I think it's like 14%

of exports out of China come to the

United States. So you know call it 85%

or so of all exports are not coming to

the US. Rare earths they knew that was

going to be a big trigger. They pulled

that lever and all of a sudden now here

we are. The second thing is people

forget that there are people involved in

these negotiations. This is not like two

AIs negotiating with each other. So

there is now uh this famous interview

that Scott Bessant did where he talks

about uh I think the guy's name is Lee

Changpang and that's like one of the

lead negotiators from China. It's safe

to say Scott Besson and Lee Changpang

they they don't get along. They're not

boys. These two dudes they are at each

other's throats and so uh I think Scott

Besson described them as like a a

low-level uh you know Chinese uh

official who uh made a miscalculation or

something like that. was very dismissive

and was talking down to this guy. Well,

a couple days later, it comes out that

Lee Changpang may or may not have in a

negotiating session sitting at the table

with Scott Bessant, they were going back

and forth and Bessant threatened

something or whatever and Lee Changpang

pulled up the phone and he called

somebody in China and told them to open

an investigation into anti- monopolistic

or into monopolistic behavior and

antirust investigation into Nvidia.

That's what's going on in these

negotiations. These dudes are messing

with each other. And so the second you

get Scott Besson, who by the way,

there's reports that he's punched

people, he went toe-to-toe with Elon

Musk, like I wouldn't mess with that

guy, right? Is sitting down with Lee

Changp, who I'm sure is a tough guy

himself, and he's ordering

investigations into American companies

and stuff. That is kind of the cutthroat

negotiating that's going on. Now what

gets reported is hey Scott Besson Lee

Changenpang they're different delegates

they come together Kumbaya we gonna get

a deal okay well guess who's got to sign

off on the deal the big dogs Donald

Trump and Xi Jinping they got to come

together there's going to be this summit

they got to go there's a lot of

negotiating just on the summit itself

where does it happen who shakes whose

hand greets who do they meet where do

they where's going to say what who gets

to talk is it in Chinese is it in

English how are you going to do this

what reporters are there all that stuff

is going on right deals going to get

done. They now claim that they've got a

lot of agreement on important things,

rare earths, fentanyl,

ship levies, right? This is a very wide

encompassing thing. What I do think is

interesting is Scott Besson has now come

out and he said, uh, I do not believe

the 100% tariff is going to be, you

know, it's pretty much off the table.

We're not going to get the 100% tariff.

Okay, great. The polyarket odds are

saying 25 to 40% tariffs is the range

where people think it's going to end up.

Uh I spoke to Jordy Vistister this

weekend. He thinks that there might not

be any tariffs, which I would be like

max bullish, right? Imagine if we get to

a point where there's no tariffs. Now

people are like, "Ah, you said tariffs

are good." Blah blah. Shut up. The whole

idea here is you actually want true free

trade, right? You do want free trade

where both countries are allowing their

producers to engage in consensual free

trade. The problem has been that one

side of the trade equation has not been

doing that. So Canada, Mexico, China,

all these guys, they are manipulating

the trade. We go into it thinking that

we're operating on a free trade basis.

They're not holding up their end of the

bargain. That's why the tariffs have

been important because it levels the

playing field. So if China was to agree

to stop sub subsidizing their producers,

stop t uh tariffing all the American

goods, stop messing with the supply

chain, stop trying to actually take away

free trade, and actually enter into true

free trade. Great. Let the market figure

out where where it's going to go. But

that would be very bullish and a huge

reason is because certainty is

important. But also is people want as an

investor they want to have the

government involved as least as possible

because now you can actually look at a

market. You can understand incentives.

The problem is when the government

intervenes, you got no clue. You have no

clue what they're going to do. Right?

Think about a local housing uh

situation. Home affordability in America

is horrible. Right? Why? I would argue

that a huge reason, not the only reason,

but a huge reason is because American

citizens are being held hostage by their

local city councils. Point blank period.

That that is a huge reason. Sure. Do we

need to uh you know get uh home uh costs

down in terms of uh monetary policy?

Absolutely. Do we have to be able to

import certain things to build a home?

Absolutely. Are there labor issues that

are going to play into this? Absolutely.

But a huge reason is because you have

local city council members who have

overregulated the building of homes in

America and they will not allow people

to build certain types of homes in

certain areas. Okay. Well, how do you

get home prices down? You build more

supply. This is like economics 101,

right? I'm pretty sure I could go to

somebody in a kindergarten class and ask

them and they probably would come up

with the answer. If you want prices to

go down, you build more of it. The

problem is that they're being held

hostage by the local city council and

you can't predict what they're going to

do. You have no clue. Economic

incentives. How many times in America

has this local city council member

gotten in trouble for corruption, right?

Of course, there's all this stuff

playing out. So, the less that the

government is involved, the more

predictable it is. The more predictable

it is, the better it is for an investor.

And so I think on now extrapolate it

back to the US China trade like

obviously having the government less

involved is better for asset prices and

it's better for investors. The question

is just how much are they going to be

involved? And then I saw uh our friend

uh Matthew uh Seagull over at Van. He

had banger banger line. He said he was

on an earnings call, I think, or on like

an analyst call, and somebody said, uh,

I'm going to paraphrase, but they said,

uh, White House asset management is

still very active in the sectors we care

about. And it took me a second. I said,

wait, what? White House asset management

is basically like, you know, America

Inc., right, is they're playing in our

sectors. They're buying stakes in rare

earth companies. They're looking at

quantum. They're looking at Intel.

They're like, again, the government is

doing this stuff. Now, there's good

reason in some cases for national

security or, you know, trying to reshore

things or or whatever, but also it's

unpredictable. White House asset

management. You don't know which

direction they're going to go. And so, I

think that what you find is once people

get clarity, once people knew the White

House is going to make an investment in

Intel, what happened? Bam. Intel takes

off. Why? Some of it, yeah, of course,

like they're going to get more

contracts, all that stuff. But a big

reason is now people know that money

going from the government is going to

this company. we now have clarity. I can

go put my money in Intel because I'm

ready to rock and roll, right? And I

think you're going to see this play out

over and over again, whether it's at the

trade deal or White House asset

management, which uh we need to figure

out who the CIO is. I need to know who's

pulling the trig. You know, is it

Lutnik? Is it Besson? Is it Trump? Is it

Baron? Right. I I don't know. It kind of

depends. Uh but I think that White House

asset management uh is, you know, just

as important as uh Lee J uh Chang Pang

and Scott Bessant, you know, calling

each other on the phone and and playing

around. you let me know how I invest in

that asset management company

>> to I mean look he you know here's what's

crazy is uh if you think of most other

countries they have a sovereign wealth

fund right and the US has talked now

about this sovereign wealth fund um I

mean you know uh Howard Ling sat right

in that chair and he told me that we

should uh monetize the balance sheet and

we should use it as you know an

offensive way to drive revenue and all

this stuff makes sense um now the

counterargument to that and I try to be

you know pretty fair of looking at both

sides uh the counterargument is well the

US is broke we don't have we don't have

any money for a sovereign wealth fund

right we We we we don't got wealth, we

got debt. So unless you want to have a

sovereign debt fund, uh I don't know

where you guys can come up with the

money. Now, if you look at the Bitcoin,

you know, strategic Bitcoin reserve,

well, basically we're just going to take

it from people, right? So like again, I

I think that there is uh this like gray

area of like how are they going to do

some of this stuff? But um yeah, in a

way you are invested in the White House

asset management firm, right? is uh they

are taking care of taxpayer money and

they're taking care of uh the country's

balance sheet and they're taking care of

you know you can think of the financial

future of the country uh it may not be a

direct thing where you get a K1 and you

know a distribution statement um but if

they do a good job then you should see

the benefit to it right and uh the

question is just um you know what does

that game look like I think we're still

figuring out I think that they would be

the first to say they're still figuring

it out um but uh you know Scott Besson

and he looked uh he looked a little

crazy when he was putting $20 billion in

Argentine uh pesos. Um I I even said,

you know, I saw somebody tweet and say,

uh, man, damn, the United States bought

pesos before we bought Bitcoin. That

seems kind of crazy. Peso's up 10%.

Scott Besson looking like a genius right

now. Helps that Malay, you know, won

down in Argentina. Uh helps that um you

know, the the the kind of recovery of

the US strength behind it. You know,

there's a lot of things that play into

it. Uh, but I do think that uh, White

House Asset Management, you know, that

they're uh, that they're making some

plays and uh, I'm glad that they're on

our side. Awesome. All right, that's all

I got for you. I'll see you guys next

week.