1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,320 Imagine if I told you that gold had just hit an all-time high, up 44% this year and 15% 2 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:19,640 since the Fed with a dovish pivot in August of 2025. It's absolutely ripping. Whilst Bitcoin, 3 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:25,120 my favourite, has been, as Mr Checkmate likes to say, in chop-solidation mode. 4 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:31,260 Now this has sparked a number of interesting conversations. Is gold signaling the end of 5 00:00:31,260 --> 00:00:37,460 Bitcoin's bull run? Is there something bigger about our broken money system that we're missing 6 00:00:37,460 --> 00:00:41,740 from these price signals? Over the next 30 minutes I'm going to break down some data, 7 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:46,460 I'm going to look at some historical context, I'm going to share of course my personal takes 8 00:00:46,460 --> 00:00:53,640 and ultimately why I'm still betting big on Bitcoin for capital growth. Even in the instance 9 00:00:53,640 --> 00:01:07,140 where gold, perhaps you could say at the canary in the inflationary coal mine, is whispering warnings about all the shifts that are going on in the global macroeconomic and financial space. 10 00:01:07,300 --> 00:01:13,200 So there's a lot going on. At the end of this, you'll be able to get some insight onto what I'm doing, of course, 11 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:19,440 insight into how I believe the central banks are behaving and, of course, understand why. 12 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:24,980 Why is it that the gold price is charging, yet digital gold, Bitcoin, is not? 13 00:01:25,180 --> 00:01:29,700 And the divergence that has happened, it looks like it may have broken that correlation. 14 00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:30,900 We'll dive into that. 15 00:01:31,460 --> 00:01:32,640 Now, why are you going to listen to me? 16 00:01:32,980 --> 00:01:35,700 Well, I've been investing my own money for the last 10 years or so. 17 00:01:36,060 --> 00:01:37,160 I share what works. 18 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:38,340 I share what doesn't work. 19 00:01:38,620 --> 00:01:42,820 And I'm always looking for answers, asking myself, what am I missing? 20 00:01:43,180 --> 00:01:46,240 What is it, Jake, that you don't understand is going on out there? 21 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:47,240 Figure it out. 22 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,900 and once you do that, what do you do with that information? 23 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:54,080 What decisions can I make that improve the situation that I'm in? 24 00:01:54,860 --> 00:01:59,960 Now, an example of this would be is go and price the S&P index in gold. 25 00:02:00,780 --> 00:02:01,600 What happens? 26 00:02:02,140 --> 00:02:06,800 Well, you change the denominator from the US dollars that you're used to 27 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:09,120 or the index ticker that you're used to 28 00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:13,180 and you suddenly see a pretty boring chart of very little growth 29 00:02:13,180 --> 00:02:16,980 and that's because gold is just another way of measuring value. 30 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:19,720 but how wildly different these two pictures are. 31 00:02:20,100 --> 00:02:22,040 Now, I've covered this in the podcast previously. 32 00:02:22,180 --> 00:02:23,680 So for those of you that have listened 33 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:25,040 to recent episodes about this, 34 00:02:25,380 --> 00:02:27,040 then you'll understand what I'm talking about. 35 00:02:27,100 --> 00:02:28,680 But if you haven't, stick around 36 00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:29,680 because I'm going to explain. 37 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:31,760 Now, I always encourage people, 38 00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:34,500 hop over to the podcast player like a fountain, 39 00:02:35,180 --> 00:02:37,420 join NOSTA, get involved in decentralized 40 00:02:37,420 --> 00:02:41,000 and uncensorable communication online, 41 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:42,340 chuck us some zaps. 42 00:02:42,340 --> 00:02:43,960 And if you feel like giving me an email, 43 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:46,080 then hi at jakewoodhouse.io. 44 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:50,360 I'd love to hear from you. And if you have any insights, why is gold doing what it's doing? 45 00:02:51,400 --> 00:03:00,440 So let's dive in. What is gold and why do we care? Well, the very simple answer is gold is money. 46 00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:07,440 And gold has been money for a very, very, very long time, thousands of years. And it has defied 47 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:13,700 the odds in many ways of a extreme amount of trial and error. We have used lots of different 48 00:03:13,700 --> 00:03:18,260 types of money. And the Austrian School of Economics is very, very insightful for this 49 00:03:18,260 --> 00:03:24,900 because they have the phrase sound money and gold is sound money. Why do we like using gold? Well, 50 00:03:24,940 --> 00:03:30,560 it fulfills a number of characteristics that are required of the material or the technology that 51 00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:35,900 makes a good money. And it then is able to store value. It is able to be a medium of exchange and 52 00:03:35,900 --> 00:03:41,440 it's able to be a unit of account. This is not an episode about the merits of sound money. I 53 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:46,060 encourage you wholeheartedly to dive into that as a subject and I will do future episodes on that 54 00:03:46,060 --> 00:03:50,760 because without the base understanding of the concept of sound money you don't understand the 55 00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:56,880 difference between saving and investing and so why is gold ripping in price right now well because 56 00:03:56,880 --> 00:04:03,120 it's a way to store value over time one of the reasons that gold failed in my opinion is not is 57 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:09,740 it just good at storing value across time but it failed at storing value across space and this is 58 00:04:09,740 --> 00:04:14,620 were the historical context of the development of modern communications channels where it became 59 00:04:14,620 --> 00:04:21,160 easier to send IOUs over telephone via centralized entities than it was to actually physically settle 60 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:27,700 gold. And that weakness, shall we say, is what opened up Pandora's box of the last century of 61 00:04:27,700 --> 00:04:33,200 central banking and what has become the most recent iteration of that with an entirely fiat 62 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:39,920 currency like US dollars, British pounds, euros, RMB, yen. They're not backed by anything. Now a 63 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:44,320 good way of even thinking about this is a suit that you can go and buy on Savile Road today 64 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:52,000 is the same price when measured in gold as what you would have paid in a upper class Rome 65 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:56,400 thousands of years ago. Now think about that. Isn't that crazy? If you just had the same amount of 66 00:04:56,400 --> 00:05:02,100 gold as you did back then, you'd buy the same amount of material in real life. And that just 67 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:07,060 shines a light on the fact that actually hang on a second maybe the denominator i've been using my 68 00:05:07,060 --> 00:05:13,400 whole life to measure things in in terms of value is wrong and that is the pounds i grew up with in 69 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:17,680 the uk or here in australia and then you start digging into how many of these things are they 70 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:22,200 printing each year and you start looking at the actual inflation numbers and we'll come to this 71 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,940 later because it's really important as a piece of the puzzle as to why the gold price behaves the 72 00:05:26,940 --> 00:05:32,420 way it does and how different Bitcoin might be. So why do we care about this right now? Well, 73 00:05:32,700 --> 00:05:38,040 gold's price action, without any doubt, it's like a thermometer on global economic health. 74 00:05:38,860 --> 00:05:43,740 And it is absolutely, it's smashing through the red section of a thermometer right now because 75 00:05:43,740 --> 00:05:51,440 the price, you don't get a 15% rise in the price of gold since August. That's mad. What is going on? 76 00:05:51,440 --> 00:06:05,960 And that's what I'm diving into today. It's really due to the behavior, in my opinion, of central banks around the world and a shift in policy from them away from owning government bonds and into owning hard assets like gold. 77 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:14,800 Now, interestingly, the environment for interest rates at the moment, the Federal Reserve just lowered by 25 basis points. 78 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:18,100 The Royal Bank of Australia held yesterday, which was interesting. 79 00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:27,080 But I would argue that right now, not only are we seeing all time highs in stock markets, but inflation isn't fully under control, yet they're dropping interest rates. 80 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:27,880 Why? 81 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:36,480 Well, because they're so indebted and the cost of their debt is so high that without inflating it away on the back end, they're completely insolvent. 82 00:06:37,660 --> 00:06:40,140 And so gold is absolutely rocking. 83 00:06:40,660 --> 00:06:48,000 Not only are the central banks buying, but anyone that hasn't studied Bitcoin doesn't understand that there's a new form of digital sound money. 84 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:49,640 And so they're flocking to gold. 85 00:06:50,460 --> 00:06:55,980 Now, for the first time ever, the U.S. gold reserves exceed one trillion dollars in value. 86 00:06:56,700 --> 00:07:00,140 Now, shout out to the, I'm going to get the name wrong, the Kobe Isai letter. 87 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:01,460 Perhaps I said that wrong. 88 00:07:01,740 --> 00:07:03,340 But they had some good charts this week. 89 00:07:03,860 --> 00:07:09,320 I'll, of course, link a GDoc in the show notes with all the resources that I've gone through to pull this information together. 90 00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:12,200 And they post, this is insane. 91 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:18,300 As the record running gold accelerates, the U.S. gold reserves just exceeded one trillion for the first time in history. 92 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:24,300 The U.S. now holds two and a half more times gold than Germany, which is the second largest holder. 93 00:07:24,300 --> 00:07:32,040 now this isn't a podcast about is the statistic on gold owned actually true because there's a mad 94 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:39,060 fact about when fort knox was last openly audited make of that what you will like how much gold the 95 00:07:39,060 --> 00:07:44,960 u.s government actually have well according to their data it's just passed through a trillion 96 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:51,120 dollars worth of value but i don't know if that's 100 true but what it screams to me is inflation 97 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:57,820 risk. The US dollar is weakening. They are printing money and people can see it. And the gold price is 98 00:07:57,820 --> 00:08:04,000 the indicator to you that shows it's actually happening. Now, quantitative easing or stimulus 99 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:09,360 packages or whatever they give it as a term, basically more money in the system. If there's 100 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:13,640 more money in the system, but the same amount of stuff as before, then the price moves up. 101 00:08:14,300 --> 00:08:19,320 The value doesn't change. And this is why we're all so confused. You go back and study the Weimar 102 00:08:19,320 --> 00:08:23,540 Republic, people thought they were getting rich because there was more Deutschmarks and the stock 103 00:08:23,540 --> 00:08:27,520 market was hitting all-time highs. But it wasn't that they were getting rich. It was actually they 104 00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:32,420 were getting poorer and the denominator was being disintegrated. And it's very deceptive. 105 00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:38,640 Now, there's also counterparty dangers, right? Why are they buying gold? I'll hit on this later, 106 00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:44,300 but the Russian sanctions that got put in place a few years back, the US confiscated all US 107 00:08:44,300 --> 00:08:49,040 denominated assets that the Russians owned. This counted billions of dollars in spite of the fact 108 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:51,120 that they were already trimming their position 109 00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:53,040 with that counterparty risk in mind. 110 00:08:53,860 --> 00:08:54,940 Now, as I already touched on, 111 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:58,840 go and view things you value in normally, 112 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:01,360 whether you normally use a pound or an Aussie dollar 113 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,620 or a Canadian dollar or a US dollar or euro 114 00:09:03,620 --> 00:09:05,260 or whatever currency it might be. 115 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:06,260 Price it in gold. 116 00:09:07,100 --> 00:09:07,820 See what happens. 117 00:09:07,820 --> 00:09:10,800 I have started running net asset calculations 118 00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:13,380 on my end in gold. 119 00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,240 So each week I have a figure of ounces. 120 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:27,580 It like your net assets right now are this amount of ounces of gold And why is that helpful It just another way of looking at value Now should you buy gold That a great question 121 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:28,960 Absolutely great question. 122 00:09:29,060 --> 00:09:31,340 By the end, we'll have a good answer to that, I hope. 123 00:09:31,940 --> 00:09:34,120 I want to just touch on as well another excellent episode 124 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:36,060 in recent times that I analyzed previously 125 00:09:36,060 --> 00:09:39,740 of what Bitcoin did with Danny Knowles and Dr. Jeff Ross 126 00:09:39,740 --> 00:09:42,260 when they were looking at the S&P priced in gold 127 00:09:42,260 --> 00:09:43,980 over the last 100 years. 128 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:45,900 And what it shows very clearly is 129 00:09:45,900 --> 00:09:47,680 there's no real growth. 130 00:09:47,1000 --> 00:09:49,860 There's a bunch of boom and busts. 131 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:51,660 But in gold terms, 132 00:09:51,700 --> 00:09:53,700 if you had the same amount of gold as 100 years ago, 133 00:09:53,700 --> 00:09:55,340 you could buy the same amount at the stock market. 134 00:09:55,920 --> 00:09:56,440 What the hell? 135 00:09:56,800 --> 00:09:59,280 That's not the world I see around myself now, is it? 136 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:00,980 Now, for sure, 137 00:10:01,180 --> 00:10:03,720 I would like to consider holding some gold 138 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:05,460 as like an emergency stash 139 00:10:05,460 --> 00:10:09,200 for what happens if the banking system collapses tomorrow? 140 00:10:09,300 --> 00:10:10,820 What happens if the internet gets switched off, 141 00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:12,140 as my wife asked me recently? 142 00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:13,880 Earning some gold, 143 00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:19,340 I would like to have it myself so I'd self-custody it somewhere and I'd like to have it in small 144 00:10:19,340 --> 00:10:24,960 amounts so I could potentially use it for day-to-day trade. For capital growth my bet's 145 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:30,520 still Bitcoin and we'll hit on that as we go through the episode. What happens if the gold 146 00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:35,880 price is being suppressed? Now this is a much bigger subject than what I can cover just in here 147 00:10:35,880 --> 00:10:42,200 but there was a situation in the 60s where the London gold pool was tied up in suppressing the 148 00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:47,700 gold price. The French left and it collapsed. There's history of this happening, right, openly 149 00:10:47,700 --> 00:10:54,060 from central banks and countries. In 1999, the Washington agreement limited sales to avoid 150 00:10:54,060 --> 00:11:00,980 crashes. You find yourself playing a game where others write the rules, right? Oh, no, we're just 151 00:11:00,980 --> 00:11:06,640 going to stop sales for now. And it's all about controlling the alternative to fiat currency. 152 00:11:07,220 --> 00:11:11,140 It's like, oh, no, no, no, you can trust our currency. We're not printing that much of it. 153 00:11:11,140 --> 00:11:14,180 The inflation rate of 2% per year is roughly what we're hitting. 154 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:16,740 And there's nothing to see here, guys, nothing to worry about. 155 00:11:17,320 --> 00:11:22,880 And the price of gold, when it rips, it's like, I should be owning gold, right? 156 00:11:23,020 --> 00:11:27,820 Anyone out there that's chasing investment returns or is simply trying to retain purchasing power 157 00:11:27,820 --> 00:11:30,700 will be looking at the gold price going, God, why don't I own some? 158 00:11:31,380 --> 00:11:33,080 Why in the hell am I holding these dollars? 159 00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:34,620 Why am I holding these euros? 160 00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:36,160 You know, they're going backwards. 161 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:42,380 but what's what's really shifted in the last 10 years is central banks are now openly buying gold 162 00:11:42,380 --> 00:11:46,300 and as i touched on before that's because the counterparty risk of owning 163 00:11:46,300 --> 00:11:52,720 the the government bonds that previously were the norm has gone up plus the inflation risk on those 164 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:58,160 bonds has gone up so you go and buy 10 years worth of the u.s dollar debt you know that when you get 165 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:03,140 it back at the end of 10 years even with the yield that you've been paid the real rate of inflation 166 00:12:03,140 --> 00:12:07,480 has suppressed, not suppressed, that's the wrong word, the real rate of inflation has eroded the 167 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:12,640 purchasing power of that debt contract. Like why would you own a negative yielding debt product? 168 00:12:12,720 --> 00:12:18,220 It doesn't make sense. So they're turning to gold. And now I want to shout out to James Lavish's most 169 00:12:18,220 --> 00:12:23,700 recent newsletter with the information is absolutely excellent as always. You know, being able to read 170 00:12:23,700 --> 00:12:30,240 the insights of an active fund manager with lots of experience into Bitcoin as well. I mean, it's 171 00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:37,440 gold does this stuff so a thousand tons annually for three years has been picked up by central banks 172 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:43,480 like who's buying well it's not a it's not it's not a secret this but the brics nations right the 173 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:48,280 chinese the russians the indians they're not interested in u.s government bonds any longer 174 00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:54,260 what happens if they get sanctioned why would they go and buy them right and from reports that are 175 00:12:54,260 --> 00:13:01,460 actually visible. So the National Bank of Poland has added 49 tons in Q1 of 2025. China's central 176 00:13:01,460 --> 00:13:07,700 bank has been purchasing since November 2024. And they paused for six months just prior to that, 177 00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:14,900 they've added another 13 tons in Q1 of 2025. The Turkish, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, 178 00:13:14,900 --> 00:13:21,100 Cambodia, the Philippines, they're all buying gold openly. But here's the kicker, right? According 179 00:13:21,100 --> 00:13:28,140 to the data James is posting, only 22% of actual central bank demand is seen on the market. So that 180 00:13:28,140 --> 00:13:33,840 means 80% of gold purchases are being done through back channels that we have no idea about, right? 181 00:13:34,220 --> 00:13:38,760 A lot of this is apparently conducted through Switzerland. And they don't declare it. Why 182 00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:46,520 wouldn't you declare that you own more gold? Well, one, it's a safe haven asset that they are 183 00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:51,760 stashing for a rainy day. We want to retain our purchasing power. Having money that functions in 184 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:56,440 the future as a store of value is important to us. We want to own that. But two, it's also 185 00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:01,600 recognition of the fact that their currencies are failing. Now, no one really wants to admit that, 186 00:14:01,660 --> 00:14:06,640 right? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not buying gold. No, nothing to see here. Why? Oh, because I believe 187 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:13,660 in the fiat currency that I produce every day. So this is fascinating to me. Okay, these are 188 00:14:13,660 --> 00:14:18,920 genuine mechanics of the market that are shifting on like decade-long time horizons are now speeding 189 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:26,920 up. And important to point out is that the bid, the gold price bid is from people allocating from 190 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:32,680 a strategic perspective. They are price insensitive. So they are buying what they can 191 00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:38,980 in order to hit whatever quota they might have given. Now, the gold bulls out there are obviously 192 00:14:38,980 --> 00:14:40,400 You're like, whoa, gold is ripping. 193 00:14:40,620 --> 00:14:41,600 We always knew this would happen. 194 00:14:41,660 --> 00:14:42,680 And look at Bitcoin. 195 00:14:43,180 --> 00:14:44,280 Bitcoin's going nowhere. 196 00:14:45,180 --> 00:14:48,680 Now, gold is tracking the M2 money supply very, very closely. 197 00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:51,180 But Bitcoin itself is lagging. 198 00:14:51,820 --> 00:14:52,240 Why? 199 00:14:52,240 --> 00:14:54,080 Why isn't Bitcoin following it as well? 200 00:14:54,180 --> 00:14:58,560 Isn't liquidity an important part of the price action of Bitcoin? 201 00:14:58,720 --> 00:14:59,720 Well, absolutely it is. 202 00:14:59,780 --> 00:15:05,880 But what's interesting here with this analysis, it's actually not unsurprising to see where the price actually is. 203 00:15:05,1000 --> 00:15:07,400 And that gave me great confidence. 204 00:15:07,520 --> 00:15:08,220 Thank you, James. 205 00:15:08,980 --> 00:15:15,060 He points out, importantly, that Bitcoin and Global M2, that the pattern seems to have broken from July this year. 206 00:15:15,660 --> 00:15:17,220 Interesting. Let's dig into why. 207 00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:21,940 Now, I don't see this as Bitcoin failing, and he quite rightly points that out. 208 00:15:22,220 --> 00:15:27,120 The question actually better asked is, what if the M2 readings aren't quite right? 209 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:30,100 What if M2 is telling us something that's not completely true? 210 00:15:31,540 --> 00:15:33,700 And this is just an obvious point. 211 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:38,420 But as an investor, you want to be looking at the metrics you are actually making decisions with. 212 00:15:38,420 --> 00:15:43,200 are they correct what might be wrong about the metric you're using and james walks this through 213 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:48,220 very very well i would 100 go and read the newsletter if m2 isn't quite right well why 214 00:15:48,220 --> 00:15:53,840 wouldn't m2 be correct and he's like well okay points out to another report so michael howell 215 00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:58,600 we'll touch on him later as well in more detail but james cites his work and michael's built a 216 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:05,360 global liquidity uh calculator and it's a piece of proprietary technology that he's built and it 217 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:12,100 monitors a lot more things than just m2 and his latest data shows that there's 184 trillion dollars 218 00:16:12,100 --> 00:16:18,240 an all-time record high of liquidity wow this is like what i mentioned just before if there's the 219 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,720 same amount of goods and services in the economy but they put more money into it the amount of 220 00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:29,260 value being exchanged isn't changing but the prices do so 184 trillion dollars if we know how much 221 00:16:29,260 --> 00:16:35,420 liquidity is in the market we can start to make a bet on what the the the hard assets that reflect 222 00:16:35,420 --> 00:16:42,320 the shift in liquidity will do in terms of price action and then benefit from that so he points out 223 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:47,440 the key insight i think is everyone's missing bitcoin's lag versus m2 isn't a problem it's 224 00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:53,300 responding to actual liquidity conditions with a natural delay not to headline m2 number that can 225 00:16:53,300 --> 00:17:00,220 be distorted by TGA accounting and other short-term noise. M2 is a rough estimate that can miss key 226 00:17:00,220 --> 00:17:06,739 pieces of the liquidity puzzle. It does not capture Fed liquidity swaps with foreign central banks, 227 00:17:07,259 --> 00:17:13,780 the repo market, shadow banking liquidity, cross-border dollar flows, and changes in volatility 228 00:17:13,780 --> 00:17:19,940 and collateral requirements. Whereas Michael Howe's global liquidity captures all of this. 229 00:17:19,940 --> 00:17:28,100 point being is that that gold and m2 chart is is is not as accurate as we might think to the actual 230 00:17:28,100 --> 00:17:32,700 global liquidity number from my perspective what does this represent it's like well okay the 231 00:17:32,700 --> 00:17:39,580 divergence maybe this is like the 1970s an inflationary era right gold is up 44 year to date 232 00:17:39,580 --> 00:17:46,739 stocks are also rallying what does that mean and and basically the the norms of safe haven 233 00:17:46,739 --> 00:17:55,820 like the norms of safe haven behavior seem to be shifting now i want to make a shout out to some of 234 00:17:55,820 --> 00:18:05,200 my um audience members on nostr chris justin bond 008 trusso 19 everyone coming in with some great 235 00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:09,479 questions about okay well what's going on with the gold price at the moment and it's particularly 236 00:18:09,479 --> 00:18:14,180 this story about gold price suppression that i want to highlight because what if they've been 237 00:18:14,180 --> 00:18:19,739 purposefully manipulating the price of gold down so that we don't see the erosion in purchasing 238 00:18:19,739 --> 00:18:25,720 power of fiat currencies as clearly as what's happened in the last 15% the last rally since 239 00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:32,220 August. So what the hell is going on out there? We can continue to dive into it. Shout out to 240 00:18:32,220 --> 00:18:36,840 Michael, my producer, who also popped me some stuff as well. North Star Charts, again, I'll link 241 00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:50,779 this in the show notes they show how the Dow and gold is reversing dramatically So hang on a second What going on here The stock market versus gold we have fallen below 242 00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:54,019 So the chart rising equals Dow beating gold. 243 00:18:54,299 --> 00:18:56,199 The chart falling equals gold beating Dow. 244 00:18:56,839 --> 00:19:00,019 So this idea that the stock market would always outpace gold, 245 00:19:00,019 --> 00:19:04,339 that has to be brought into serious question here with this information. 246 00:19:05,459 --> 00:19:06,799 So what do we do about this? 247 00:19:06,799 --> 00:19:09,819 Well, I need some more people to think about this through with. 248 00:19:10,259 --> 00:19:14,299 What are other characters that I've trusted in the past that I know have a good understanding of gold? 249 00:19:14,879 --> 00:19:18,799 And who should we lean on to justify our decisions? 250 00:19:18,959 --> 00:19:20,899 Now, James Lavish is absolutely excellent, of course. 251 00:19:21,379 --> 00:19:22,579 But shout out to Larry Lepard. 252 00:19:22,699 --> 00:19:25,839 So Larry came on my podcast, Bitcoin with Jake, a couple of years ago. 253 00:19:26,199 --> 00:19:27,859 We've done a couple of podcasts now. 254 00:19:28,179 --> 00:19:29,539 What an awesome guy to learn from. 255 00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:36,779 You know, a lifelong investor, worked as a VC in the tech space and then converted to more of a sound money advocate. 256 00:19:36,799 --> 00:19:43,499 spent years studying the gold market and also gold miners etc and has become a big bull on bitcoin 257 00:19:43,499 --> 00:19:50,119 why because it's a digital version of gold with superior features as sound money he was studying 258 00:19:50,119 --> 00:19:55,819 austrian economics years ago how interesting and in the episode he particularly touched on this 259 00:19:55,819 --> 00:20:01,259 concept of gold suppression it's like well think about it you know if you had as much money as you 260 00:20:01,259 --> 00:20:07,199 could possibly dream of because you can print it what would you want to do well you'd want no one 261 00:20:07,199 --> 00:20:13,579 to realize the power that you got from them you know accepting you printing dollars and you would 262 00:20:13,579 --> 00:20:19,699 use as many back channels as possible to suppress the one thing that is an alternative to the system 263 00:20:19,699 --> 00:20:25,499 you're pushing which is gold as sound money and it's like okay well how is that different in bitcoin 264 00:20:25,499 --> 00:20:32,779 And what he points out is that the shadow market for gold, there's all this paper gold that exists. 265 00:20:32,999 --> 00:20:34,679 And I'll touch on this in extra details in a second. 266 00:20:34,999 --> 00:20:40,759 And it's been possible to suppress the price of gold using fiat currency mechanisms. 267 00:20:41,079 --> 00:20:48,259 But with Bitcoin, because of its ability to rip on the short term, on the upside and the downside, it's like a hedgehog. 268 00:20:48,639 --> 00:20:51,099 It's really difficult to attack from the top. 269 00:20:51,099 --> 00:20:53,679 and anyone that tries to attack Bitcoin 270 00:20:53,679 --> 00:20:56,039 in a serious way from a price suppression perspective 271 00:20:56,039 --> 00:20:58,799 could get completely wiped out 272 00:20:58,799 --> 00:21:00,139 as this thing does, you know, 273 00:21:00,179 --> 00:21:02,219 it can double overnight if it wanted to. 274 00:21:02,899 --> 00:21:04,579 Now, yes, there's more institutional capital 275 00:21:04,579 --> 00:21:05,439 coming into Bitcoin 276 00:21:05,439 --> 00:21:08,039 and that is naturally dampening the volatility 277 00:21:08,039 --> 00:21:10,539 because a huge pension fund, for example, 278 00:21:10,639 --> 00:21:12,159 oh, I want to take a 2% position. 279 00:21:12,159 --> 00:21:14,519 They buy 2% of their net assets. 280 00:21:14,919 --> 00:21:16,779 That price then moves up by 30%. 281 00:21:16,779 --> 00:21:18,139 Well, they rebalance, right? 282 00:21:18,179 --> 00:21:19,499 They move it back to 2%. 283 00:21:19,499 --> 00:21:22,419 They only want to own 2% from their portfolio perspective. 284 00:21:22,979 --> 00:21:26,939 And so that increases the sell side pressure as the price moves up. 285 00:21:27,039 --> 00:21:34,419 And that's why I think we're getting a very natural process where the really, really intense volatility is disappearing. 286 00:21:35,459 --> 00:21:39,919 But that doesn't change the fact that in Larry's view, Bitcoin is very difficult to mess around with like this. 287 00:21:40,519 --> 00:21:41,939 And there's a long history of it. 288 00:21:42,379 --> 00:21:45,439 So, and I, of course, you know, I researched for these episodes and I learned quite a bit. 289 00:21:45,439 --> 00:21:55,339 But, you know, central banks, they basically, as we already discussed, they don't typically trade in the spot market for gold, but they can use all sorts of different relationships. 290 00:21:55,879 --> 00:21:58,899 For example, bullion banks to play around with the price. 291 00:21:59,539 --> 00:22:02,759 I touched on the example of the gold pool and how that fell to pieces. 292 00:22:02,879 --> 00:22:06,479 They were trying to defend the $35 per ounce bread and wood peg. 293 00:22:07,479 --> 00:22:11,699 Inflation from the Vietnam War was causing a lot of problems and essentially it collapsed. 294 00:22:11,699 --> 00:22:13,979 But they are openly manipulating the price of gold. 295 00:22:13,979 --> 00:22:14,439 Right. 296 00:22:14,439 --> 00:22:20,479 Right. There's then these things called gold leasing and lending programs where the central banks, they essentially they hold the gold physically. 297 00:22:20,479 --> 00:22:25,499 Right. But they create artificial supply and paper gold with derivatives products. 298 00:22:26,179 --> 00:22:29,259 This creates downward pressure, depleting official holdings permanently. 299 00:22:30,319 --> 00:22:35,859 Like, OK, fine. I don't even know what they actually hold behind these derivatives in some ways. 300 00:22:35,859 --> 00:22:43,799 you know the the idea okay alan greenspan in 1999 central bank uh central banker from the fed 301 00:22:43,799 --> 00:22:48,959 you know ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise so what the 302 00:22:48,959 --> 00:22:55,939 hell so they're selling paper claims on the gold they have that then can be used to flood the market 303 00:22:55,939 --> 00:23:01,059 with supply well inevitably with this more surprise the price comes down they then have 304 00:23:01,059 --> 00:23:07,979 coordinated sales and agreements. So for example, a central bank gold agreement, eight major European 305 00:23:07,979 --> 00:23:15,179 central banks, this was from 1999 to 2014, capped their annual sales at 400 to 500 tons to avoid 306 00:23:15,179 --> 00:23:21,299 market crashes while gradually offloading their reserves. So the announced sales created preemptive 307 00:23:21,299 --> 00:23:26,659 downward pressure. Okay, it's like a kind of stealth sale in a weird way. Like what the hell's 308 00:23:26,659 --> 00:23:34,299 going on here the uk in 1999 sold 395 tons of gold which dropped the price 20 in weeks okay 309 00:23:34,299 --> 00:23:39,419 interesting there's then the derivatives and futures manipulation that goes on okay so i 310 00:23:39,419 --> 00:23:45,679 mentioned already bullion banks e.g jp morgan hsbc shorting massive paper gold contracts 311 00:23:45,679 --> 00:23:50,159 they call them naked shorts it's where you're selling without physical backing 312 00:23:50,159 --> 00:23:57,619 what how can this make sense well it makes sense because the central bank can print whatever they 313 00:23:57,619 --> 00:24:03,019 want the federal reserve is in cahoots with the u.s government they're the same as you know said 314 00:24:03,019 --> 00:24:08,499 for the bank of england and the british government they use their commercial bank buddies that go out 315 00:24:08,499 --> 00:24:13,659 and they use these derivative products to suppress the price on the behest of the money printer it's 316 00:24:13,659 --> 00:24:19,639 classic cantillion effect behavior you're closer to the money printer so it incentivizes you to 317 00:24:19,639 --> 00:24:23,999 behave within the money printer's interests, right? Because you make money out of this. 318 00:24:24,779 --> 00:24:30,579 And it just, it's actually, it's nefarious, right? It's full on nefarious. I've even heard central 319 00:24:30,579 --> 00:24:36,299 banking described as full evil, right? They are purposefully stealing purchasing power from the 320 00:24:36,299 --> 00:24:42,079 average person by printing money, and they're suppressing the gold price so that people don't 321 00:24:42,079 --> 00:24:47,179 realize how much money has been printed. Now, when you start to piece all these bits of 322 00:24:47,179 --> 00:24:53,079 information together you're like what is going on out there plus what an absolutely incredible 323 00:24:53,079 --> 00:24:59,159 thing bitcoin in self-custody is you know baked into the genesis block of bitcoin is an article 324 00:24:59,159 --> 00:25:08,679 it says the chancellor on brink of second bailout you know a times article very very clear that the 325 00:25:08,679 --> 00:25:15,159 creators of bitcoin the creator the creators it was focused on one thing and that was the the 326 00:25:15,159 --> 00:25:20,899 absolutely heinous thing that central banking actually is and that genesis block just shows 327 00:25:20,899 --> 00:25:26,539 that now how hilarious that we're even in this situation all these years later 15 15 years or 328 00:25:26,539 --> 00:25:30,739 16 years since the creation of bitcoin and what a surprise central banks are printing more money 329 00:25:30,739 --> 00:25:37,719 central banks are trying previously to suppress the gold price but they now need gold that's the 330 00:25:37,719 --> 00:25:42,079 irony right all of these different independent nation-state central banks are buying gold 331 00:25:42,079 --> 00:25:47,819 as we discussed already the demand for gold's gone up physical sale of gold has increased people 332 00:25:47,819 --> 00:25:52,739 have been accumulating instead of owning government debt now it's also important to point out that 333 00:25:52,739 --> 00:25:58,079 these the buddies in the commercial banks the trading desks jp morgan got hit with a billion 334 00:25:58,079 --> 00:26:03,759 dollars worth of fines for one instance of manipulating the gold market and it's oh tap 335 00:26:03,759 --> 00:26:09,079 on the wrist sorry yeah we're going to fine you for that so what the hell anyway some other people 336 00:26:09,079 --> 00:26:12,859 to touch on that I thought were interesting in their perspectives. I mentioned Michael Howell. 337 00:26:12,919 --> 00:26:17,639 So he's built this proprietary tool to measure global liquidity. Fantastic. I am not yet a paying 338 00:26:17,639 --> 00:26:22,199 subscriber of his newsletter, but I think I should convert to that in order to learn more about this. 339 00:26:22,299 --> 00:26:26,219 Like if there's anything that Bitcoin is all about, it's like how much money is sloshing around 340 00:26:26,219 --> 00:26:32,759 in the system? I don't know. The Bank of England doesn't even report the amount of British pounds 341 00:26:32,759 --> 00:26:38,139 they print. It's hidden. I tried to find it one time. It's like, no, we stopped creating that 342 00:26:38,139 --> 00:26:43,639 report over a decade ago. What a surprise. Anyway, in a recent letter of his, he predicts a gold price 343 00:26:43,639 --> 00:26:51,259 of $10,000 per ounce. Why? Fiscal dominance, he describes it. Governments drowning in debt. 344 00:26:51,779 --> 00:26:55,879 They're forcing inflation. So why would you be lowering the interest rates when inflation is 345 00:26:55,879 --> 00:27:02,259 still pretty hot? And that's the government CPI numbers, right? Real inflation, for those of us 346 00:27:02,259 --> 00:27:07,039 on the ground, your beef's gone up, your house has gone up, your car's gone up, all the stuff you 347 00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:13,999 actually want to buy? Energy. The government's CPI stat has come down to 2.something percent. 348 00:27:14,159 --> 00:27:20,399 Well, if it's sitting at 2.9, that's still 0.9 more than 2% that's the target, which is 45% 349 00:27:20,399 --> 00:27:25,279 over what it should be. That's not inflation under control. And I think that's the main reason why 350 00:27:25,279 --> 00:27:31,439 the RBA yesterday decided not to cut rates anymore, or not to cut rates again. But either way, 351 00:27:31,439 --> 00:27:34,919 168 global rate cuts in 12 months. 352 00:27:35,599 --> 00:27:36,659 That's massive, right? 353 00:27:36,999 --> 00:27:39,359 So central banks all over the place are cutting rates. 354 00:27:40,019 --> 00:27:42,159 And could this be a 1970s resurgent? 355 00:27:42,319 --> 00:27:43,479 Stagflation, maybe. 356 00:27:44,319 --> 00:27:46,659 Another interesting point, and I touched on this before. 357 00:27:46,759 --> 00:27:50,899 So Robin Brooks notes the gold price is 15% up 358 00:27:50,899 --> 00:27:54,199 since Powell's Jackson Hole speech, a dovish pivot. 359 00:27:54,739 --> 00:27:55,239 I'll read this. 360 00:27:55,259 --> 00:27:56,759 So the Fed's latest dovish pivot, 361 00:27:57,179 --> 00:28:00,119 telegraphed on August the 22nd by Chair Powell at Jackson Hole, 362 00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:13,459 unleashed something and I don think anyone can really understand what that is Gold is up a stunning 15 since that day A rally that so big it stands out on a 25 chart Again I link 363 00:28:13,459 --> 00:28:21,939 this all in the show notes. Wow. Katusa Research. Gold was 21% of global assets in 1980. Today it's 364 00:28:21,939 --> 00:28:27,239 5%. The financial universe got four times bigger. Stocks, bonds, derivatives, crypto. 365 00:28:27,239 --> 00:28:34,819 but sometimes the denominator is the story what does this mean right it's like okay so all of this 366 00:28:34,819 --> 00:28:39,179 financial stuff has happened apparently all this extra value is being created but gold itself 367 00:28:39,179 --> 00:28:45,919 hasn't moved in price well it's it's obviously a combination of all these things right now larry is 368 00:28:45,919 --> 00:28:51,619 someone i really look up to and respect as i touched on in my mind like he's absolutely right 369 00:28:51,619 --> 00:28:55,919 Like gold is a value anchor, but Bitcoin is the growth engine. 370 00:28:57,039 --> 00:28:58,799 And so who else is actually picking up on that? 371 00:28:59,059 --> 00:28:59,899 I agree with you, Larry. 372 00:28:59,979 --> 00:29:00,639 That's the case. 373 00:29:01,119 --> 00:29:03,179 But what about NATO and BRICS? 374 00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:04,559 This is something really interesting. 375 00:29:04,759 --> 00:29:06,359 Shout out to Chris on NOSTA bringing this up. 376 00:29:06,799 --> 00:29:15,559 It's a seismic shift in macroeconomic behavior and central bank and nation state investment 377 00:29:15,559 --> 00:29:16,039 choices. 378 00:29:16,899 --> 00:29:18,979 And global finance is shifting, essentially. 379 00:29:18,979 --> 00:29:21,679 And gold as a neutral money is moving up. 380 00:29:22,399 --> 00:29:27,519 Now I've got here, so at level 941, again, shout out to Michael for sharing this with me. 381 00:29:28,719 --> 00:29:32,419 Canada dumped gold because gold equals BRICS leverage. 382 00:29:33,139 --> 00:29:36,519 Gold is the base asset of choice for China, Russia, Turkey. 383 00:29:37,439 --> 00:29:38,459 They've stockpiled. 384 00:29:38,959 --> 00:29:44,219 If America pivots back to gold to shore up the dollar, it enriches BRICS directly, 385 00:29:44,219 --> 00:29:50,599 handing power to adversaries adversaries a national security risk canada is essentially a 386 00:29:50,599 --> 00:29:56,479 u.s satellite economy and knows that so dumping gold is a signal of alignment with the usa instead 387 00:29:56,479 --> 00:30:01,759 of holding bullion canada leans on usd reserves and treasury securities and now implicitly it 388 00:30:01,759 --> 00:30:07,519 positions for a u.s reserve re-anchoring into bitcoin and stable coins canada preparing for the 389 00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:14,139 digital gold base layer washington is engineering now could this be true could this be the case 390 00:30:14,139 --> 00:30:20,859 that actually there's going to be a division of choice of money 391 00:30:20,859 --> 00:30:23,259 by central banks between Bitcoin and gold? 392 00:30:23,539 --> 00:30:26,119 Could it be the case that Canada is actually that sophisticated 393 00:30:26,119 --> 00:30:27,739 to be deciding to do that? 394 00:30:29,019 --> 00:30:31,179 I'm not convinced on that right now. 395 00:30:31,699 --> 00:30:34,479 And it's likely some kind of very short-term thinking 396 00:30:34,479 --> 00:30:37,019 on behalf of the government there to finance something 397 00:30:37,019 --> 00:30:38,719 that they've overpromised to their population. 398 00:30:39,099 --> 00:30:41,199 But either way, this is a great concept. 399 00:30:41,339 --> 00:30:42,219 Could this be true? 400 00:30:42,979 --> 00:30:48,639 And would that also imply the same thing for the US, Australia, Canada, the UK? 401 00:30:49,599 --> 00:30:50,679 Maybe, right? 402 00:30:50,979 --> 00:30:51,319 Maybe. 403 00:30:52,519 --> 00:30:55,839 So what is this telling us, right? 404 00:30:55,859 --> 00:30:56,919 What are the key signals? 405 00:30:57,839 --> 00:31:00,359 Well, gold's rally, it's simple. 406 00:31:00,479 --> 00:31:02,079 It's a weak US dollar, right? 407 00:31:02,139 --> 00:31:03,879 It's the worst year since 1973. 408 00:31:04,579 --> 00:31:05,699 Inflation is still happening. 409 00:31:06,959 --> 00:31:10,699 CPI is higher than most central banks claim they want it to be at. 410 00:31:10,699 --> 00:31:17,019 But the central banks themselves are hoarding gold, in a way price insensitive because it's a strategic allocation. 411 00:31:17,719 --> 00:31:22,479 Bitcoin's lag, as James quite rightly points out, is not actually something to worry about. 412 00:31:22,979 --> 00:31:24,879 And yes, the diversification is true. 413 00:31:25,479 --> 00:31:40,039 But in this instance, it's actually very, very bullish for Bitcoin and is more than likely a symptom of the shenanigans that the central bank is able to play with on the repo markets, etc. that I touched on before. 414 00:31:41,319 --> 00:31:42,999 So what the hell is going on? 415 00:31:43,599 --> 00:31:46,899 I think it's very bullish, like extraordinarily so. 416 00:31:46,999 --> 00:31:49,999 Like the year end, we're looking at some big numbers coming in, in my opinion. 417 00:31:50,579 --> 00:31:51,999 There are some risks, of course. 418 00:31:52,059 --> 00:31:56,679 And in this case, like the risks I would point out as more, why would you own US treasuries? 419 00:31:56,679 --> 00:32:05,079 Well, the sanctions that Russia got hit with were a very, very obvious shot across the bowels globally a number of years ago, 420 00:32:05,079 --> 00:32:09,139 where it's like, if you own our shit as a part of your portfolio, 421 00:32:09,599 --> 00:32:12,699 don't expect to keep it long term if you piss us off. 422 00:32:13,459 --> 00:32:16,359 And although the Russians have been actively reducing their position 423 00:32:16,359 --> 00:32:21,879 of US counterparty assets, they still had a bunch of money wrapped up, right? 424 00:32:22,399 --> 00:32:28,259 So the US froze approximately 5 billion in Russian central bank assets 425 00:32:28,259 --> 00:32:30,299 after the sanctions. 426 00:32:30,479 --> 00:32:31,479 So that was in 2022. 427 00:32:31,479 --> 00:32:38,939 but the figure is a little light because the global freeze that happened on russian assets 428 00:32:38,939 --> 00:32:44,719 is more like 300 billion of which 67 billion was in u.s dollar denominated securities 429 00:32:44,719 --> 00:32:52,259 held abroad like in europe for example so you know 300 billion oh i don't want 300 billion not on my 430 00:32:52,259 --> 00:32:57,619 balance sheet right so people are thinking okay well the counterparty risk of owning government 431 00:32:57,619 --> 00:33:01,819 debt, which was previously like highly liquid and considered the risk-free rate of return, 432 00:33:02,119 --> 00:33:08,219 is that still the case? But what other choice do you have, right? Well, gold is the obvious one, 433 00:33:08,679 --> 00:33:16,659 but perhaps level 941 is absolutely bang on. And really the central banks of the Western world are 434 00:33:16,659 --> 00:33:20,639 leaning towards Bitcoin. Like, could that be true? I mean, it would be insanely bullish for Bitcoin 435 00:33:20,639 --> 00:33:25,599 if the case, but it made me think about the Bitcoin standard and the historical context of 436 00:33:25,599 --> 00:33:32,579 the battle between gold and silver and the likes of India and China that were slow to adopt the gold 437 00:33:32,579 --> 00:33:38,879 standard and the disbenefit to their civilization and their economics as a result of doing that. 438 00:33:39,259 --> 00:33:46,059 Are we now at that same turning point? Like if a central bank actively pursues Bitcoin instead of 439 00:33:46,059 --> 00:33:51,279 gold and therefore they choose the asset that is superior for transferring value across not just 440 00:33:51,279 --> 00:33:58,999 time but also space how big a margin might they improve themselves by or win by in the future 441 00:33:58,999 --> 00:34:04,219 now as you know i'm a big advocate for bitcoin i think it benefits not just nation states and 442 00:34:04,219 --> 00:34:09,559 central banks uh in some ways i think it actually obsoletes a central bank but the commercial 443 00:34:09,559 --> 00:34:13,879 banking industry will absolutely remain because there'll still be all sorts of financial products 444 00:34:13,879 --> 00:34:19,359 that can be built on top of bitcoin the base layer but it also benefits the individual right 445 00:34:19,359 --> 00:34:25,939 it enables you to take self-custody of your stuff. It's very difficult to steal a seed phrase from 446 00:34:25,939 --> 00:34:30,639 someone. Like why would you shoot and kill someone dead if you can't get their seed phrase off them 447 00:34:30,639 --> 00:34:35,159 and then you can't get their money? Whereas you could just shoot them and take their gold, right? 448 00:34:35,319 --> 00:34:40,179 There is a very, very clear attack vector that Bitcoin has improved upon when it comes to the 449 00:34:40,179 --> 00:34:46,499 proliferation of sound money of Bitcoin versus gold. So what am I watching? Well, of course I'm 450 00:34:46,499 --> 00:34:51,379 watching m2 of course i'm watching gold of course i'm looking at bitcoin's chop solidation and 451 00:34:51,379 --> 00:34:57,279 thinking when's this blow off top gonna happen now i said i said this recently august september 452 00:34:57,279 --> 00:35:02,939 they're always quiet months right but gold's ripped since the middle of august why has bitcoin 453 00:35:02,939 --> 00:35:08,539 not done that well i think that's yet to come and that's kind of the point of this entire episode 454 00:35:08,539 --> 00:35:13,239 right is yes it's true they suppress the gold price yes it's true they're actually buying gold 455 00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:18,259 themselves. Yes, it's true that there's been a divergence between gold, Bitcoin and the M2, 456 00:35:18,619 --> 00:35:23,179 but we're not looking at the deep enough data. And Michael Howell is incredible for that with 457 00:35:23,179 --> 00:35:29,399 his global liquidity index. So what have we learned? Gold is the canary in the inflationary 458 00:35:29,399 --> 00:35:35,219 coal mine. People are running to the traditional safe haven asset. It might well be the case that 459 00:35:35,219 --> 00:35:41,779 gold actually outpaces the stock market. Could we see some kind of recreation of the 1970s 460 00:35:41,779 --> 00:35:46,959 stagflation? Maybe. If that was the case, do you want to be in the stock market or would you prefer 461 00:35:46,959 --> 00:35:54,639 to own hard assets? And gold is signaling cracks in the fiat system. It's like we can see that 462 00:35:54,639 --> 00:36:00,539 inflation isn't under control. We can see that you are buying gold yourselves. You know, that's 463 00:36:00,539 --> 00:36:04,979 such an obvious thing. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Buy my currency, but I'm buying gold. It's like, 464 00:36:05,079 --> 00:36:09,979 okay, that's sus. I don't believe you, right? I don't believe that you actually believe in your 465 00:36:09,979 --> 00:36:16,879 own currency. But it's a global shift. And so easing rates in an inflationary environment with 466 00:36:16,879 --> 00:36:22,719 all-time highs in the stock market and gold, well, more than anything else, this is a story about the 467 00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:28,699 disintegration of the denominator of what most people price their assets in. Remember that. A 468 00:36:28,699 --> 00:36:34,639 Roman legionnaire's beautiful outfit in Rome costs you the same amount in gold as a Savile Row suit 469 00:36:34,639 --> 00:36:39,379 today. Okay? This is a crucial learning that I didn't really come across for a long time. 470 00:36:39,379 --> 00:36:44,299 And because of the lens of sound money, you can then start to think about the difference between saving and investing. 471 00:36:44,939 --> 00:36:51,659 By just owning gold or just owning Bitcoin, you can save because that's a form of money that has the attribute of store of value. 472 00:36:52,019 --> 00:36:53,219 You don't take risk. 473 00:36:53,819 --> 00:37:01,379 As soon as you move your Bitcoin out of self-custody or you don't have physical custody of your gold, you adopt counterparty risk. 474 00:37:01,379 --> 00:37:12,539 So every equity that you own, every bond that you own, every physical piece of real estate that you own, every cassock car, it all carries counterparty risk, in my opinion, over and above Bitcoin in self-custody. 475 00:37:12,959 --> 00:37:27,719 But it could well be the case that these powers that be in the central banking world are cottoning onto the power of Bitcoin as per what we've touched on today and the ability for that to basically leapfrog this power play of the BRICS nations reaccumulating. 476 00:37:27,758 --> 00:37:33,438 gold. Yes, I should, you know, I'm saying to myself, become a paying subscriber to Michael 477 00:37:33,438 --> 00:37:37,618 Howell. That's something I need to do more of is figure out, okay, what bits of economic data 478 00:37:37,618 --> 00:37:42,938 are important to me? And ultimately, where does this all go? Do I want to buy gold? I'm going to 479 00:37:42,938 --> 00:37:48,078 be fully open with you. I'm not buying any gold right now. Why is that? Well, I believe Bitcoin 480 00:37:48,078 --> 00:37:53,678 is a superior version of gold. And I think that it will do better for me as a capital growth driver 481 00:37:53,678 --> 00:38:01,058 and perform that store of value than gold, in spite of gold already doing 45% year to date. 482 00:38:01,238 --> 00:38:06,098 That's a massive return. And congrats to all the gold bugs out there that have sat patiently on 483 00:38:06,098 --> 00:38:11,638 the sidelines for a long time, predicting all these problems, investigating why the credit-based 484 00:38:11,638 --> 00:38:17,838 monetary system is inevitable in its failure. And here we are, gold's ripping, good for them. 485 00:38:18,618 --> 00:38:22,898 So would I consider a small stash of gold? Yes, of course. For emergency situations, 486 00:38:22,898 --> 00:38:24,738 I'd want to take self-custody of it myself. 487 00:38:25,238 --> 00:38:26,658 Again, this episode is making me think, 488 00:38:26,758 --> 00:38:28,018 okay, Jake, you've got to get through that. 489 00:38:28,698 --> 00:38:30,718 But again, for the capital growth, 490 00:38:30,838 --> 00:38:32,058 Bitcoin is the play. 491 00:38:32,878 --> 00:38:34,838 Now, Bitcoin's crossed the Rubicon 492 00:38:34,838 --> 00:38:37,778 as an international and institutional asset, 493 00:38:38,098 --> 00:38:40,438 as Mr. James Check likes to point out. 494 00:38:41,218 --> 00:38:42,078 We should follow that. 495 00:38:42,578 --> 00:38:43,498 Pay attention to it. 496 00:38:43,858 --> 00:38:44,778 Others are taking notice. 497 00:38:44,898 --> 00:38:46,178 The institutions are buying. 498 00:38:46,318 --> 00:38:47,218 There's no doubt about it. 499 00:38:48,198 --> 00:38:50,738 Price your portfolio in ounces of gold 500 00:38:50,738 --> 00:38:52,178 and also price it in Bitcoin, 501 00:38:52,178 --> 00:38:55,478 something I do it really makes a lot of difference because each week instead of 502 00:38:55,478 --> 00:39:07,015 seeing just a dollar figure or a pound figure you get a Bitcoin figure you get an ounce figure you like oh well well that didn move too much Well that actually gone up Do you know what I mean You get a different feel and you measuring value in different ways 503 00:39:07,915 --> 00:39:12,015 What I definitely don't want to be doing right now is selling Bitcoin to buy gold. 504 00:39:12,195 --> 00:39:14,015 That would be a real mistake. 505 00:39:14,015 --> 00:39:19,055 And James points that out brilliantly in his newsletter as to why Bitcoin lagging versus 506 00:39:19,055 --> 00:39:21,415 gold and M2 is actually not such a big problem. 507 00:39:22,495 --> 00:39:23,395 But what do you think? 508 00:39:23,695 --> 00:39:24,975 What are you doing with your money? 509 00:39:24,975 --> 00:39:29,755 I'd love to hear from you. Are you just quietly, calmly staying humble and stacking sats? 510 00:39:30,035 --> 00:39:33,895 Or have you been buying some gold? And if you did buy some gold, did you buy a derivative of gold? 511 00:39:34,415 --> 00:39:38,755 Do you own some kind of claim on a piece of physical gold somewhere? Or did you actually 512 00:39:38,755 --> 00:39:44,095 take in hand coins? And do you have a safe somewhere? Obviously, don't tell me the exact 513 00:39:44,095 --> 00:39:48,935 storage location of your treasure, but I'd love to understand what makes sense for you. 514 00:39:49,515 --> 00:39:53,175 And as I've been through all this information today, a lot of stuff has become more crystal 515 00:39:53,175 --> 00:39:58,275 clear for me. And it's really that idea of like, when you're playing around in the gold market, 516 00:39:58,315 --> 00:40:01,635 and you're playing around in the equities market, you're still playing on someone else's playing 517 00:40:01,635 --> 00:40:07,475 field. And that's where Bitcoin as a system of rules, not rulers, is so compelling from an 518 00:40:07,475 --> 00:40:13,015 investment and wealth protection perspective. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to 519 00:40:13,015 --> 00:40:18,795 hear from you. Reach out on NOSTA, send us some zaps, give us a boost on Fountain. I'll of course 520 00:40:18,795 --> 00:40:24,055 link all of the resources and research I've done for today in my show notes. My email, hi at 521 00:40:24,055 --> 00:40:28,855 jakewoodhouse.io. Always reach out with any questions and I'd love to hear from you. So 522 00:40:28,855 --> 00:40:31,155 thanks so much for tuning in. Really appreciate your time.