The reason they have to continue to create money is that the debt continues to grow,
and if we don't create money, the debt will collapse.
The debasement will come.
Gold will keep running.
Bitcoin is going to wake up and go from, you know, 90 to 270 or, you know, 3x easily.
Everybody is saying, you know, we realize that this is a house of cards,
and the way to think of it is like a game of musical chairs.
It's not a trade.
It's a trend.
I do think that big print's on deck.
And I do think that when it comes, Bitcoin will respond and it will respond ferociously.
You know, at some point, the thing is so asymmetric.
It's just going to explode to the upside.
Bitcoin's going to smash the system, whether they like it or not.
Few people understand is how when this thing does hit, when this next wave does hit, it's not going to 140, guys.
It's going to 250 or 300 or 350.
Larry Lippard, welcome back on the show.
The last time we spoke was in September last year,
and so much stuff has happened since then.
I was kind of going back through all the macro events since then,
and we've got a lot to talk about today, Larry.
Yeah, we sure do, yeah.
But how are you doing?
How was your Christmas break?
Well, it was great.
It's nice to be with you.
And as I think I've told you,
I'm trying to kind of reduce my podcast a lot, but yours is always, Peter had me on in the early days,
and you guys have always been one of my favorites, so I'm never going to cut out WBD.
But I'm doing great.
My vacation was good.
I'm now in Florida.
You know, I'm kind of in that old guy camp where, I guess in America they call us snowbirds,
which means I spend the summer in Boston and the winter in Florida.
And it's also tax advantage because Florida doesn't have state income tax.
So I will be here into May and June.
And, you know, it's pretty nice and sunny outside, whereas I just talked to somebody in Massachusetts and they just got six inches of snow last night.
Yeah, that's the move.
I was obviously just in Miami to do the sailor interview and the weather at this time of year is so nice.
That's the place you want to be doing winter.
Yeah, it's really great.
But let's get into it, Larry.
So when we were speaking last time, I think I titled the episode The Big Print is Coming, something like that.
a classic Larry Lippard title. And we've not had the big print, but there has been the start of a
little something. They've been doing the, what are they calling it? The buyback.
The gradual print. Well, they call it reserve management.
Yeah.
Right. And so, yeah, it's notable what happened in the last two Fed meetings. One,
they stopped the quantitative tightening. And then two, they started saying that they were going to
potentially do some reserve management because things were getting too tight. And they floated
the trial balloon of $25 billion and maybe starting in 2026. And then at the Fed meeting in December,
they came out and they said, no, it's not 25, it's 40, and it starts in two days,
which kind of told me that they really were under pressure to do it. And just to summarize for the
audience, most people know this, the reason they have to continue to create money is that the debt
continues to grow. And if we don't create money, the debt will collapse. So they have to service it.
And they've tried to be responsible and to reduce inflation. And I think it's an important point
that they did not want to do this, Danny. I mean, they, you know, Chairman Powell wants to be Paul
Volcker. He wants to tame inflation. And inflation has not been tamed. Even by their crummy broken
measure, it's 2.7 to 3%. And we all know it's actually higher than that. So they haven't solved
the inflation problem, but they've turned the money printer back on. And that's a big deal.
I'm writing my fourth quarter letter, which will be out soon. It's free. I'll put it on Twitter and
we talk about that. And it's a very big deal. And so it's, you know, it's 40 billion of purchases
a month, which adds up to 480 a year, which is not the, you know, 3 trillion that Bernanke printed
or the 5 trillion that Powell printed. But, you know, my sense is that's the start and it's,
They pivoted and it's going to grow.
And Lynn and I have had kind of a nice back and forth on Twitter where she says, well, it's the gradual print, not the big print.
And I said, yeah, you're right.
But it could morph into the big print.
And I think it will.
And I've actually got a chart on that.
I don't know if Niles want to go into it, but we could talk a little bit about that if you like.
Yeah, well, we can pull the chart up.
But the thing that I thought was really interesting about this is that in 2008, when they did the big QE event then, it was in response to a crisis.
And then with COVID, it was in response to a crisis.
And then even with the BTFP thing, that was in response to like a small crisis within like the regional banks.
But then this time, I don't know if it's the first time it's been like this, but nothing seems to be happening.
But they are still turning the money printer back on.
And I don't know if it kind of signifies that the system just needs this now.
It's not a response something.
It just needs it all the time.
I think that's a great insight on your point.
And I had the same thought myself personally that, you know, yes, the system does need it.
It's almost a mathematical requirement or certainty.
And you're right.
There is no crisis.
And yet, you know, they're trying to be preemptive.
They know that if reserves get too tight, they'll have something like the repo blowout in 2019.
And, you know, they can't have that.
And they don't want to have that.
They're trying to fight off a crisis by kind of gradually leaking more money in there.
I think the problem they're going to have, though, is that the math is just compelling.
And I think there are a couple, there are probably three macro signals that I see that say that they're really running out of time, and I'll point them out.
Probably macro signal number one is the price of silver.
Silver was up 157% last year and just continues to go straight up.
And there's a lot to unpack there, but we'll just leave it at that.
The other point is the price of gold, which is very similar.
It hasn't gone up as much, but it's up 50% plus last year.
And then the third item is, and I kind of continually retweet this every morning, is the Japanese 10-year bond.
Japan has been a source of a lot of liquidity in the United States and really all over the world as a result of their carry trade, which was driven by their low interest rates.
And interest rates in Japan kind of look like a chart of the price of silver.
You know, the 10-year just kind of goes, it's up and to the right in a very steep fashion.
So to me, there's some clues, not certainties, but clues that things are breaking and they need to print more money.
And as we see, they just started printing more money.
You know, I think that number will grow.
I said that earlier.
So you think this gradual print could turn into the big print?
What would be a, do you think it needs an event, a COVID type, obviously not global pandemic, but like a black swan event to turn into a big print?
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know. I really don't know. Yes. I mean, obviously a COVID black swan type event will clearly do it. You know, we're so leveraged that any kind of a serious downturn in the stock market or a blow up in the bond market would be.
The question is, can we have the big print under just kind of normal circumstances?
And, you know, it took two big events to create those prior big prints.
And so you would think, OK, it's going to take a big event this time.
But one other there's one other thing that's in the mix that I think makes it very an interesting question.
And that is what's going on with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve management?
And, you know, the subtext here is, you know, we've got Trump at war with Powell.
And, you know, it's very unusual for a Fed president to come out on a Sunday night and say that he's going to fight back against, you know, this group within the government that are asking him a lot of questions about the overruns on the building.
And Trump kind of claims that's not him doing it.
That's a little bit hard to believe.
And, you know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, Trump has really kind of got the Fed under siege.
and as we all know, he has the ability to appoint a new Fed chairman in May
and a couple of names have been bounced around for that.
The original name was Hassett, Kevin Hassett, who was very, very dovish,
said he thinks interest rates should be 1% or 2%.
And I think what happened is Trump might have gotten a tap on the shoulder
from a combination of percent and the bond market.
I said, nah, sir, if you do that, you're going to lose the bond market.
And I've often thought that the trigger for the next big print
will be the 10-year, the U.S. 10-year yield, which has kind of been locked in plus or minus around 4%.
And they've been able to do that because the basis trade has just grown enormously.
Basis trade is three times larger than it was in 2019, which is shocking to me.
Yeah, and the basis trade is just they get hedge funds to buy and sell treasury bonds in order to
keep the yields locked into a certain place. And they lever them up heavily and they make a spread
on the fact that nothing blows up.
But when something does blow up,
then they have to issue swap lines.
And that was part of what happened in COVID.
They had to bail out Ken Griffin and Citadel
and a big participant in the basis trade.
So if the 10-year were to start to move aggressively
through 4, 4, 4, 5 to 5%,
which I think is a very real possibility,
that would lead to yield curve control.
I mean, basically, I think what's going on
is gold and silver smell what's coming.
It hasn't happened yet, but they think mathematically it has to.
And so they kind of smell it.
And we've even seen things that are very, it's very notable to me.
Stephen Moran is Trump's Council of Economic Advisers guy.
And he got put on the Fed board when the woman got accused of insider trading.
And so she resigned.
That was like the fourth instance of that.
And when he was getting vetted to be a member of the board, on the Fed board,
he made a testimony that more or less said something along the lines of,
The Fed may have to, at some point, be in a position where they set policy on long-term interest rates.
Well, that's code for yield curve control.
And yield curve control says the Fed buys the bonds to keep the rates low.
This is what third world and emerging market countries do.
What do they buy the bonds with?
They buy it with newly printed paper that grows their balance sheet.
And so once that starts, this has a little bit of the gradually then suddenly kind of component to it.
And so, you know, if the Fed just starts yield curve control and says, let's say we're going to lock like they did after World War II or during World War II, they locked in yields long bonds at 2.5 percent.
Let's say the Fed says we're going to hold bond yields at 4 percent.
We're not going to let the 10 year go above 4 percent.
And let's say, you know, Trump keeps talking the way he's been talking about, you know, occupying countries and growing the defense budget from one trillion to five trillion.
Well, then the next step is going to be, all right, you're telling me I can only get 4% and we're spending like crazy.
There's $37 trillion, almost $38 trillion of U.S. federal treasury debt.
The bond market is going to look at the Fed and say, sold to you.
Great.
You'll pay me for my bond at the 4% yield?
Good.
I'll give it to you.
And 38, I mean, their balance sheet right now is about $6.5 trillion, down from $9.
so i think on the next big print the fed balance sheet goes from that six five to i don't know 10
15 20 i mean some big number right and if the entire 38 you know trillion came at it you know
it would really go to a big number and we'd be off on the road to hyperinflation so that's not
my base case by the way i think we're just gonna have high inflation but um you know all of these
things to me you know the markets are telling us the silver market and gold market are telling us
these things are in the works. I mean, gold and silver are really great at smelling this stuff.
And there's a chart I put out as well in the past, and it's all over my Twitter feed and others that
it showed. And this time reminds me very much of 2020. So the COVID event occurred,
the Fed pivoted, they started printing a lot of money quickly. Gold went from 1,200 to 2,000
quite quickly. And Bitcoin just sat there, you know, for months, it was kind of locked between
like seven and ten thousand dollars and you know it just kind of went sideways and then suddenly it
woke up that fall in october and it just went on a tear and in the next six months it went from 10
to 60 that's 6x and so there was you know it was kind of like gold moved first gold smelled it first
and then bitcoin followed the flag and i i kind of expect the same thing this time gold's doing
its thing it's moving it says the debasement is coming the debasement will come gold will keep
running and then at some point as the debasement comes and the money flows in
bitcoin is going to wake up and go from you know 90 to 270 or you know 3x easily in my view so
is it tomorrow no i mean i i have that as within six to six to twelve months i guess but i i could
be wrong i mean maybe maybe they hold it all together danny it's entirely possible that they
hold it together i mean they're they're good can kickers i'll give them that you know if you already
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Yeah, I'm not betting on them holding it together.
I do want to get into the gold and silver trade because I think that's been like probably the most interesting thing over the last six or 12 months.
Right.
But just before we do, do you want to bring that chart up that you sent me?
I think that shows how the balance sheet goes exponential.
Yeah, this is a really, I love this chart because this was done by Mike Oliver,
who's a really great macro analyst.
And let me just show this to you.
So what you have here, Dan Oliver owns more McCann Capital.
All credit to him.
This is his chart, not mine.
But I read it and saw this is really, this nails it.
So in his title is American Money Printing Goes Exponential.
And the chart starts in 1960.
The lighter gray sloped line, that's kind of a growth curve, you know, pretty much tied to the growth of my spouse.
It's kind of 7% compound growth.
And as you can see, compounds are getting 7%.
Eventually, it starts to go straight up.
It's kind of exponential.
And the black line is the Federal Reserve liabilities or the Federal Reserve balance sheet, which really is a measure of the reserves that they put into the system, which the banks then take and lend out.
And that lending is what creates growth in M2.
Okay.
Okay. So what you can see is that they tracked from 60 to 80, they were together all the way up to 2000, a little blip.
But basically in 2008, you can see that, you know, the debt kept growing at an exponential pace.
And one thing that's not on here, I kind of wish it was, is the overall level of debt in society.
Because the debt level in society would kind of track the exponential growth curve.
And, you know, the debt kind of got ahead of the balance sheet in 08, and we had a panic.
and boom, they printed.
And you can see it went up quite a bit from,
I think the Fed balance sheet was 850 pre-08
and it topped around three something,
three five, I think at the top.
And then of course, Yellen and Powell tried to reduce it
and they did start reducing it,
but you can see the second arrow right there,
the repo COVID panic was 2019,
New York repo rates blew out,
went up to 10% overnight.
And that was the first Powell pivot.
And so Powell at that point in time basically said, hey, we can't keep tightening. We've got to loosen. In fact, we've got to do QE. And then, of course, COVID hit and then all hell broke loose and it went straight up. And of course, that's what created the 9% inflation peak that we had. And so eventually he figured out and he said it was transitory, it was wrong. I mean, this is what happens when a lawyer is your central banker. I mean, you can blame a lawyer for not understanding it. I mean, the one who should have understood it is yelling.
Anybody, when we grew, when they did this thing,
basically they grew M2 by 40%.
So you can't grow M2 by 40% and think
you're not going to have inflation.
I mean, I was just, you know, what were they smoking?
So, right, but then he started tightening again.
But here, notice this, you know, so they tightened
and they came from the peak of nine.
Now the balance sheet is say six five okay But look at how the interesting point is every time the money in the system the black line dipped below kind of the growth in debt line
the exponential growth in debt line, you know, a problem occurred.
Well, look at where we are right now, right?
So what do you think is going to happen next, right?
I mean, the black line is about, and the black line is turning up.
This doesn't reflect the December, you know, change policy.
So, you know, you just know what's going to happen next, right?
this black line's got to go north of $10 trillion. And it will, in my opinion. This isn't just my
opinion. This is kind of a mathematical fact. I mean, they could not do it. And in which case,
the debt would start to default and everything would start to collapse. And we'd have a
deleveraging, cascading cycle that would look like 1929. And that would be extremely unpleasant.
And, you know, if they choose to go in that direction, so be it.
I'm making a strong bet that they will not choose to go in that direction.
And I think it's a logical conclusion that they won't.
But I suppose they could, right?
That's a tail risk to the debasement trade that we're all in.
So, but this chart is basically why you think a gradual print isn't sustainable.
Because at some point, like, it just needs to keep up with the debt.
That's exactly right.
It's just not going to cut it.
But so is there like when you say the tail risk, is the tail risk that instead of printing money, they start defaulting on debt and things like that?
Yeah, yeah. It's a possibility that they, you know, they try and maintain discipline.
I mean, I don't I don't think it's particularly likely given, you know, what we know about what Trump has said and his policy.
I mean, we've got Basant saying, you know, that the Fed and the Treasury need to coordinate policy.
We've got Trump saying, you know, that we've got to be more of, I mean, it's becoming clear that this administration and a lot of people in government are kind of starting to view this as, you know, we're going to make up the rules as we go along.
We're in a great power competition with China and Russia and whatever it takes to keep America in the position we want to be in, we're going to do it.
And, you know, it's existential.
They're using words like, you know, we've got to go to a wartime footing.
And, you know, they did it in World War II, right?
I mean, we had to fight fascism.
We took on all kinds of debt.
We suppressed yields.
Bondholders got killed.
Inflation was high.
You know, I think that's kind of where we're heading.
And they're telling you that.
I mean, this is not some secret.
I mean, Trump had a tweet on Truth Social where he said he wanted to see 20% to 25% GDP growth.
Well, you can get that, but only if you have 15% inflation.
Do you know what I mean?
Because you can't get real GDP growth.
I mean, it's not like we're going to increase our productive capacity 25% one year.
That's physically impossible.
Is that impossible even with massive breakthroughs in AI robotics?
Those things will help.
There's no doubt that all of the great technology we've got going on will help,
and it fights against the argument that I'm making.
But I'm of the belief that it's too little too late,
that the problem is bigger than can be solved with the AI and the productivity boom.
I mean, we are really in the later stages of this monetary decay.
And, you know, things like the silver price.
I mean, the silver price and the gold price have done things they've never really ever done before.
You know, just they're kind of relentless.
You know, they did this a little bit in the 80s with the end of that.
And Volcker solved that by taking rates at 20%.
But, you know, he had the space to do it.
At that time, debt to GDP was 35%.
Right now, debt to GDP is 125%.
So they just, you know, the Fed really is kind of trapped.
And in my view, they have to run it hot.
And what's going to be interesting, and they can do that.
And that will keep the economy going, by the way.
But there's just no way that's not inflationary.
I mean, that's the bottom line.
It has to mathematically be inflationary.
And Trump and Vicent have said that their best bet
at solving this problem is to grow their way out of it.
And so that's what I think they're going to try their best to do.
We should talk a little bit about the gold and the silver trade
because I remember when you were in Bedford in March last year,
we did a show and gold had already been ripping.
I think it had just gone over like $3,000 or something.
And you were saying then you could see it having a run at sort of $5,000
and here we are like not even a year later and we're not far off that at all.
What's been driving the gold and silver trade?
Because I imagine this isn't just hedge funds.
Do you think nation states are a big part of this?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So a lot of things are driving it.
But I would say that the two biggest drivers are the dollar losing its status as the world's reserve asset.
Not necessarily currency, but asset.
People used to save.
I mean, since 2014, net treasury bills held by foreigners have been flat to down.
People just don't trust the dollar anymore.
They can see what we all can see.
So that's part of it. And then, you know, the Chinese and others, they've stood up the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the volumes there are huge. And, you know, you've now got China trading with Saudi Arabia. And if Saudi Arabia ends up with too many yuan and they don't want it, they can't buy goods from China for it. They just converted it gold. In the old days, with the petrodollar, they would have converted that excess into US dollars.
And so, you know, so you've got nation states going for gold as a neutral reserve asset.
That's part number one.
You've also got central banks realizing the problem and central bank purchases have been
growing and they're large and steadily growing.
And you've got a third issue that kind of falls into a little bit of the conspiracy
theory world.
But, you know, I would consider we all know that a lot of conspiracy theories have kind
of become conspiracy facts.
and that is kind of the paper markets
that have manipulated these things.
I mean, the United States and others for years and years,
and I know this, I believe this,
there's absolutely conclusive evidence
if you go to the GAB site or a lot of other places
to show it, that they've suppressed
the precious metals prices because they know
that doing so helps their inflation numbers look better
and they've done it by selling paper gold
and paper silver.
And you can do that as long as buyers
are willing to accept paper gold and paper silver.
And up until more recently, that's been the case.
But what's happened, and you see it this year in the data,
and it's really kind of stunning data, Danny.
I don't have it right in front of me, but trust me on this,
that people are starting to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice.
I've got a derivative contract.
I've got a CME contract for, you know, one CME contract is 5,000 silver ounces.
It's five bars at 1,000 ounces a piece.
I know because I took delivery of one once.
It bottomed out the trunk of my car when I put them in the trunk.
And, you know, they're saying, you know, give me the silver.
You know, yeah, I bought the contract.
And it's funny, when I said I want the silver delivered, they were like, no, you don't.
I was like, yeah, I do.
And they were like, well, there are going to be charges.
And, you know, we're willing to pay you a small premium to not take delivery.
I said, no, that's not what I want.
I want you to give me the damn bars.
And eventually they did, but it took a lot to do it.
And that's happening everywhere.
Everybody is saying, you know, we realize that this is a house of cards.
And the way to think of it is like a game of musical chairs, right?
I mean, a real silver bar is a chair, and a paper silver claim, that's not a chair.
And so if you take the paper claim and say, I want the real bar, there are only so many bars.
I mean, the silver market is so financialized and so papered over that we buy in 850 million ounces of silver every year.
We trade that in half a day.
So, I mean, think about that.
I mean, there are days when we trade two times the annual mining volume on one of the silver paper exchanges.
Isn't that crazy?
That's crazy.
What that tells you is there's just a lot of paper claims against what's really being produced.
And, you know, we're moving from a world where paper, you know, we've had 50 years of, you know,
the U.S. had the leading form of paper and paper could be used to buy everything.
And, you know, you didn't need to really have the stuff.
And, you know, the bricks and others in the world are now kind of saying, well,
That's all really nice that you got that paper, but show me the stuff.
You know, I can't build a solar panel with a silver paper contract.
I can't, you know, build my Tesla with a silver paper contract.
And you've seen it.
I mean, you've seen it.
It's reached even down to the company level.
I thought this was very interesting.
A company I'm involved with, Samsung.
So silver, and that's the other thing about silver.
Silver demand is really growing.
Silver demand, silver is used heavily in solar now.
It used to be used in photography.
That's gone away because of digital.
but it's also being used in these new batteries that uh toshiba and samsung have developed and
they're not commercial yet but they use a lot of silver but the solar demand alone
i've read that the solar demand in china um could consume over half of it's right now it's about 20
percent of world silver supply and that will grow to over a half in the next five years if it
continues at the current slope right and then you bring these chinese these japanese companies who
have these new solid state batteries that require a lot of silver um you know they're going to have
enormous demand too. And so if you took a lot of electric cars, a lot of electric batteries with
these silver, you know, silver component, there's going to be demand getting added there. And to
that point, one of those companies, I believe it was Samsung, went to one of the companies I'm
invested in and said, we're going to invest $10 million in you on very preferential terms,
slightly above market. But in exchange for that, you're going to agree to sell all your production
to us. Now, why does a user of silver do that? And not at some fixed price. They're not trying
to arb the price. I say, whatever the market price is, they are worried about their supply.
They know supply is tight and they want to have a guaranteed source of supply. So they're willing
to make an investment in the company to help them and lock in that supply. So that's the kind of
thing that's going on. So this is very real. And in Bitcoin land, others, I've seen people say,
well, look at the chart of silver.
It's a parabola.
This is a short.
It's going to collapse like it did with the Hunt brothers,
like it did in 2011.
I'm not so sure.
I mean, you asked me my target price on silver.
I mean, we'll be at 100 in days.
And, you know, I mean, how high up is up?
I just don't know.
But it's been suppressed for so long,
and 50 was a ceiling for so long.
We broke through that ceiling.
200 could be possible.
I've seen 500.
It's not nuts.
I mean, it's interesting that the precious metals, I say this a lot and people kind of laugh, but the precious metals have no top because fiat has no bottom.
And I'm not predicting hyperinflation yet.
It's not my base case.
I just think high inflation is very likely built into the system.
And there's really no way to avoid it.
I mean, other than letting everything collapse, which I don't think they'll do.
So you think this sort of commodity bull run is nowhere near over yet?
Absolutely. I'm going to say it in my letter. I think we're in the second inning.
I really do. And it's very hard. I mean, look, my fund's up a lot. I've got investors saying,
God, we've got all these profits. Should we take them? And I'm like,
yeah, let's take a little bit. And we actually distributed 10% of the fund this year to our
investors. Just said, yeah, it's prudent in case we're wrong to take a little bit of the profit
off the table. But no, I think that, you know, this is a case of we're in early days of this
kind of a problem. Unless we see sudden, and when I say this, people always chuckle because it's not
like, but if we see sudden responsible behavior out of the United States government, you know,
balanced budget, et cetera, that, you know, it's, well, look, it's not, you know, stranger things
have happened, right? I mean, you know, if they got, if they started behaving in a responsible
fashion, then we'd have to reevaluate our thesis. But I see them going the other way. Like I said,
Trump said, I was shocked when he said it. He said, our defense budget is just under a trillion
dollars. And he said, we should take it to one five. I'm like, sir, where the hell is that going
to come from? Do you know what I mean? I mean, it's nuts. It's nuts. I mean, safety noise used
to say the biggest threat to Bitcoin was responsible fiscal policy by governments,
which really means there's no threat to Bitcoin. I think that's what most of us see. But look,
I've got my eyes open. I've been burnt before and I'm not believing my own bullshit here. If
there's evidence and the price starts to show me that we're wrong, then I'll react to that.
I know a lot of people, I have investors, I've talked to people in my cohort, and I know a lot
wealthy people, most of them don't own gold or silver or Bitcoin, they own stocks.
And they're all talking to me and they're just like, God damn, Larry, I'm just too late.
And I'm like, no, you're really not.
As you and I both know and agree, I mean, Bitcoin will be at a million someday and then
some higher number than that.
I think gold 10,000 is very doable.
So buying it at four is not nuts.
I mean, four and a half.
I mean, so it's, you know, to me, it's interesting because, you know, remember that year, one of
things I pointed out is that they've labeled this now. They've come out and they've called it the
debasement trade. I mean, it really started in a big way in September, right after the fall came
in. And at that point in time, Doge was dead and it became very clear and the big, beautiful bill
had passed. And so they're going to spend another three or $400 million more than they thought.
And it became, and Elon had given up on it all because, you know, he's a smart guy and he realized
he couldn't fix it. So he walked away from it. And, um, yeah, so, you know, at that point in time,
you know, gold and silver just woke up and said, okay, we know what comes next guys, you know,
we're, um, let's go. And, you know, the, I think that these people who asked me, am I too late?
I just, I say to them, you know, it's, it's not a trade. I mean, they call it the debasement trade.
It's not a trade. It's a trend. It's a multi-year trend. And I don't know what the top is. And will
there'll be corrections? Sure. You know, there'll be corrections in all of these assets. But,
but I think the trend in all, all sound money assets, silver, gold, Bitcoin is up and to the
right strongly. So yeah, the idea of a trade implies that at some point you're going to want
to sell it back for dollars. And I thought about that. I thought, should I sell some of my gold
and silver? Where would I put it now? Now it's interesting in my case, because I've got assets
in both of these camps, as you know, one of the hardest things I've had to do in this whole
goddamn sound money world. And I got the Bitcoiners criticizing me for being a boomer with rocks.
And I got the rocks guys criticizing me for believing in magic internet money. And I get
all these trolls on Twitter. Trust me, fucking nuts. But it is the one nice part about having
that balance of these two assets is like right now, I am trimming some silver mining, some silver
and gold positions. And I'm buying MicroStrategy because to me, MicroStrategy at 1.7 is just
money laying on the floor. It's like, go pick it up. I mean, you know, the MNAV has gotten
completely compressed. There's nothing broken with the thesis. You know, I sincerely believe
that Saylor is a genius and he will continue to, you know, do what he's doing and that this will
be a thousand dollar stock. So, you know, on a relative basis, you know, Bitcoin and strategy
are cheaper to me right now than gold and silver in the debasement trade. It's interesting too,
daniel point something out you know three years ago bitcoin was flying and gold and silver stocks
were in the sewer and everyone hated them and and that was when a lot of bitcoin said why don't you
just dump that shit do you know what i mean it's like yeah i don't know i think we got a couple
more puffs in the cigar i'm not going to give up you know and and here we are and it's kind of
worked and right now i got a lot of you know shift and all these other gold guys are like hey see the
bitcoin thesis is broken it's all over you know it hasn't correlated we got five years of flat
performance. I mean, Luke Groman, who I love and think is brilliant and I've learned a ton from,
you know, even he kind of backed away from, I don't know, you know, maybe, you know, he lightened
up and I'm just like, gosh, guys, you know, to me, that just feels like, you know, this New York
Times piece, right? And it totally attacked, total cheap shot hit piece on Sailor. I mean, to me,
that's going to be like the magazine indicator, you know, inflation is dead or, you know, I mean,
gold is a pet rock. I mean, they, they, the, you know, the journal published an article,
gold as a pet rock right at the bottom in 2015. I mean, they almost nailed the low price of gold
at $1,000. And here we are at $4,500. And so, you know, they're attacking Saylor. And I think in
two years, Saylor's going to have the last laugh. And I think Bitcoin's going to wake up and, you
know, it's like the Christopher Walken's lion. It's going to wake up and just show everybody
who's boss. So I'm very sanguine about it, but that's because I've been at this for a long,
long time and I've seen these you know these psychological swings occur and it's just like
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I'm the Lou Grohman one. I'm with you. I think Luke's brilliant.
I learned an absolute ton from him I love his newsletter Um I really enjoy having him on the show but he um he sold at least a portion of his Bitcoin a couple of months ago And the reason being was that he thought the four cycle was still a thing which I just think that out the window
I'm more and more coming around to the fact that maybe it never really existed.
Maybe it was just sort of the quiddity cycles.
I don't really know.
I'm not sure that's his reasoning.
When I heard him talk about it, I think his reasoning was a little bit more that it was still trading like an equity.
It wasn't trading like a neutral reserve asset.
Which is true.
there's some of that i mean it started to detach from the triple q's but um and it is it's clearly
risk on um you know versus gold which is more risk off but you know think about selling an asset with
this much um asymmetry to it i mean you know so he sold it in the 90s he's got to pay tax so now
he's you know he's got it's got to drop into the 60s or 70s to just get the same amount of bitcoin
after he pays his taxes on what he sold right and so to me you're picking up nickels in front of a
steamroller right so you're hoping it'll go to 50 and by the way it might go to 50 it might go to 60
i mean i have that in my model i my partner and i talk about this a lot we have it as about a 30
chance that we're not done with this bitcoin correction and there's one more cleansing flush
sometime in the next three months before the real big print comes but i think that you know
as i mapped out earlier i do think that big print's on deck and i do think that when it comes
Bitcoin will respond and it will respond ferociously.
And so, you know, I mean, Fred Kruger wrote a really good book, which I recommend a lot, called Bitcoin One Million.
And in that book, he had a very interesting statistic, which is that from 18 to 24, Bitcoin went up 7 or 8x.
You missed the 10 best days.
You didn't make any money.
I mean, so how do you, you know, how do you time?
I mean, how do you time this asset?
And so it's a classic to me because as you're, you know, I thought your last interview with Saylor was really great.
And I, you know, my take is he was just having a bad day.
And I think he was a little hard on me unnecessarily.
I'm not sure he really, I think you guys were kind of talking past each other.
Because he's right that anyone buying Bitcoin, we should support.
But you are right that not all of these, you know, Bitcoin treasury companies are going to make it.
And some of them were pretty poorly run, to be fair.
um so um but you know it's um it's a situation where um you know at some point the thing is
is so asymmetric it's just gonna it's gonna explode to the upside so i i don't get it i
mean you know like i say kruger said that you know 10 days you missed 10 days and you lost the
money you lost money i mean i don't want to know when those i don't want to not be there i guess
is the point i'm making right a hundred percent and like i i'm not someone who can predict the
price of Bitcoin, but I would be surprised if it went back down to 50, 60K. And like, it could,
it could. And if it does, I'll buy more Bitcoin. But I don't, it's not, it's not my sort of base
case. So like the question I'd want to ask Luke is when does he sort of, if it doesn't go down
there, when does he capitulate and buy back? I listened to him carefully and he said, he thinks
it'll go down there. You know, he, he expects, I mean, I think the other reason, and to be fair,
he may be right about this. He does expect some kind of something breaking and a real deflationary
flush that I think then leads to the big print. I think that's more his model, that it's going to
look like COVID or it's going to look like 2008. And that in that environment, you might see 60,
50, whatever it might be, and he would buy it. He also, in a more recent interview, I listened to,
because I listened to everything he says, like I said, he's brilliant. He said, look, if it turns
around and they start printing like crazy and the print comes and it goes to 110 or 115 and I got to
buy it back slightly higher, fine.
You know, I'll do that.
You know, look, everybody manages their own money in their own way.
And, you know, it's not a religion.
It's not like, you know, all you're doing is you're making probability-based bets.
And he's been so damn right about so many things.
He may be right about this one, too.
Another really good guy I respect is Michael Oliver.
He's not a Bitcoin fan, but he's a very good technical analyst.
And his technical models show up going to 60,000 as well.
If you kind of look at it in Elliott Wave terms, the first wave down was an A round, then to 80, it bounced back up here into the 90s, that's a B, and then the C should take it below the 80.
I'm not sure we get to 60. 70s probably seems likely. But I bought some microstrategy yesterday. I mean, I want to own a lot of microstrategy.
I've got some cash from having sold some silver stocks.
And so I'm going to just kind of dollar cost average micro strategy for the next six months.
Because I know that at 170, you know, I mean, if Bitcoin goes to 50 or 60, strategy is going to 110.
But, you know, you can't, I mean, that's the thing.
You can't get the absolute tops and the absolute bottoms.
That's what Rothschild said.
You know, you can't be a pig, right?
I mean, when things are on the cheap side of the board, you buy them.
And when things are on the expensive side of the board, you sell them.
And by the way, that's why I've been selling a little bit of silver.
I mean, I think silver's still got quite a ways to run, but I could be wrong about that.
So I've sold some.
I mean, I've got silver that I bought in the 80s and 90s for $6 an ounce.
I mean, what is it today?
I mean, it's like 80-something.
It's nuts, right?
Yeah, that's not bad.
Yeah, I've got silver right now at 94.
I mean, this is crazy.
So if I didn't sell some, I mean, one of the things when I look at investing, one of the things I try and do is,
because I've done this for so long and I've made so many mistakes, is you try to minimize regret,
right? And you think when you're sitting there and looking at something, you say, well,
if, you know, okay, so silver's at 94 and I think it's going to 300. Okay. But guess what? It can
also go down to 40 again. And if it's a 94 and I didn't sell any, what were you, some kind of an
idiot? Do you know what I mean? So am I going to sell all my silver? Hell no. Am I going to peel
off 5%? Yeah. And then, and then what's cheap right now? Oh, MicroStrategy is pretty cheap.
well, maybe I'll sell 5% of my silver and I'll buy some MicroStrategy, right?
So it's just, you know, that's, I mean, I'm a, you know, I'm a professional investment manager.
That's what I do.
And so to me, it's all about kind of probability and odds.
None of us know anything with certainty, but you can kind of lean, you know,
you can lean into things when you think you're on the right side of stuff, right?
Yeah.
I mean, so one of my, this might be a bit of a mid-care take on what's going to happen this year,
But with the midterms coming up, like Trump is obviously worried that if he doesn't do well in the midterms, he's going to get impeached, like all sorts of stuff.
He needs to have an incredible year, which means he needs the economy to be running like absolutely blazing.
So he's going to do everything in his power, which is obviously why he's doing the stuff he's doing with the Fed, to just make the economy the best economy the U.S. has ever seen, essentially.
And so I don't know how you bet against Bitcoin in that environment.
I don't know how you can sell Bitcoin now with that coming up.
I completely agree with you.
I mean, it's just, yeah, the politics of it all.
I mean, what he said, you know, the aggressiveness of Venezuela and Greenland.
I mean, all of it.
I mean, it's just, you know, the 1-5 on the defense budget.
I mean, you know, money is, you know, they will find the money.
They will spend the money.
They will have, and, you know, the tell, the thing to watch,
I think it's kind of surprising to me,
but I guess it's the basis trade that's held it together,
is that the 10-year, the U.S. 10-year is hung in there at 4%.
I mean, I just can't imagine who would want to own a U.S. 10-year bond paying 4% when you've got a government that's out of control.
It makes no sense to me, but it is what it is.
But at some point, I think that will break, and that'll be the tell.
That is what I watch most carefully.
So do you think if that's true and Trump tries to run this incredibly hot going through the rest of this year,
asset prices will do really well.
Do you think he'll be able to do that without inflation coming back in a serious way?
Well, yes and no. So as you know, there's a lag between the time when you print and the time when the inflation shows up. Right. So and they're probably they're probably trying to time it well. You know that the sense that I mean, Paul's out in May. You know, hopefully they get a new Fed share. They let's let's say hypothetically they can get the rates down to two or one. I don't know if they can.
I mean, there is a board and they all vote, but I think they're going to really bully the shit out of the people at the Fed.
That would lead to a whole round of refis that would lead to a lot of, you know, real estate transactions.
That would lead to a lot of borrowing and locking in those low rates.
And by the way, it would bring down the U.S. interest costs because we've financed everything short term.
You know, and our average interest cost right now is about 3.3%.
I mean, if bills got down to 1.5%, you know, that trillion dollars we're spending on interest would get cut.
and that would make the deficit smaller.
So that's another consideration that they're facing.
And, you know, all of those things will lead to rapid, in my opinion, M2 growth.
But that doesn't necessarily happen immediately.
If you'll recall with COVID, you know, they printed a lot of money very quickly starting in 2020.
But the peak inflation was kind of 12 to 18 months.
I'd have to go back and look at the numbers.
But it takes a little while to show up, you know.
So, you know, they might, you know, print the money, get the high, feel good, you know, and the inflation prints are still okay, you know, and so they cruise through November and they get the seats.
But guess what?
You know, inflation in 2027 goes back and heads towards double digits.
You know what I mean?
So just more kicking the can down the road.
Yeah, I could see that scenario.
That's kind of, that's my best guess as to how it plays, right?
Larry, you're like a free markets guy.
And one thing that I've never really understood, like Trump said that he wants to get the rates down to like 1%.
Surely that shouldn't be the cost of capital.
That seems too low.
Like, what do you think the cost of capital should be?
Oh, it's way too low.
Well, so none of us really know because we're living in a Potemkin artificial world.
I mean, the real cost of capital is set by the balance of savings and investment demand.
And, you know, and that would only occur if we didn't have a Federal Reserve and we had a true free market for interest rates.
But we're so far away from that to be ridiculous.
I mean, if you look at the level of inflation we have, you know, across the capital should be higher.
I can't answer the question because I just I don't even begin to know.
And things are just so crazy distorted.
But I mean, one thing I do know is true, though, if you look at the chart of what the federal funds rate has done since Volcker,
I mean, you know, they jack it up, they drop it down, they jack it up, they drop it down.
We'd almost be better off if it had just been set on autopilot at 4% or something.
Do you know what I mean?
I mean, it's because we've got these enormous swings.
I mean, you know, Volcker quote rates up to 20%.
I mean, and setting, I mean, part of what created this mess and has us where we are now, Danny,
that's so screwed up, and I talk about this a lot in the book.
I mean, zur, the whole notion that capital is free, it's just insane.
Insane.
That's like a tautology.
It's like a crime, it's like a chart crime against, you know, against capitalism.
You can't have free capital.
You know, okay, if you say interest rates are zero, you're implying that money has no value, which one could argue that's true when it comes to fiat.
But, you know, I mean, ZERP was just a, it was ridiculous, you know, and it was a free subsidy to everyone who could borrow money.
And that's why all these cotillionaires got rich.
And so, you know, it's, this is no way to run a railroad.
It's just no way to run a railroad.
And, you know, that's all pretty depressing and it's tearing the country apart.
And you see all the bad social things that are happening in Minneapolis, everywhere.
And, you know, it all just comes back down to the money being broken, which, again, is why I wrote the book.
I just I wish the country understood that, you know, and I think most Bitcoiners understand it.
It's the base layer that's broken.
And it's not unsolvable, folks.
I mean, if we go back to a sound-based layer, you know, we've got all this great technology, and if we don't get into a world war and we don't all kill each other, you know, everything will reorganize.
Now, there will be winners and losers, you know, people who hold debt will get wiped out, and there'll be a lot of inflation in the transition, but, you know, things will be good again.
I mean, it's, you know, we are all productive actors who will, with the right incentives, do the right things and make the world a much better place.
And so, you know, all I'm waiting for is to get through this fourth turning and return to that sound money. The problem is that, you know, it's going to take, it's probably going to take crisis or semi-crisis conditions to get us there because, you know, the average boobus Americanus and certainly all the politicians aren't going to take us there on their own.
Although one interesting possibility, and I've talked about this on other pods, is that Trump and or Bessent do something really, really bold, which is to try and do a monetary reset.
and I don't know if they have the political space, I don't know if they have the guts
but we could theoretically skip the
let's go to super high inflation, the country tears itself apart and the currency fails
by Besant waking up one morning and saying
we're going to revalue gold at $30,000
we're going to revalue Bitcoin at a million dollar coin
and the government will now exchange your dollars for either of those two things
bring us a million dollars, we'll give you a Bitcoin. Bring us your ounce of gold, we'll give
you $25,000. Or give us $25,000, we'll give you an ounce of gold. And we are now on a sound money
standard, period. And 1971, gone, done. Oh, and by the way, we're going to balance the budget by
basically cutting expenses here and there. And the TGA would be revalued. And that markup of the TGA
would be used to pay down the government debt. I mean, if they did that, it would be enormously
painful for bondholders it would be enormously one-time inflationary but it would you know so
it's like ripping off the band it would hurt like shit but you know on a go forward basis we would
actually have a sound money solution um now you know that's my 10 case because i just i don't know
that they'll have the guts to do it and i mean and and even even i may be wrong about it i mean it's
a scary step i mean i i could be wrong about the way that it plays out um so you know will they do
it? I don't know. But I do know this. I do know that until we get back to sound money, I think
inflation is going to be the problem of our age. And, you know, the more likely path on the whole
thing is I think inflation just gets worse and worse and worse. You know, the blue team wins in
2028 and inflation really gets bad. Maybe the currency even fails with all their actions. And
then, you know, I've said this in other pods, I really do believe there's some chance that we get,
you know, Michael Saylor stands up and says, Hey, you know what? Uh, you know, I've studied history.
I went to MIT. I'm an engineer. I understand how this all got broken. I've got the receipts. I'm
the richest man in the world. Cause Bitcoin's at $10 million a coin. I'm going to burn my keys.
I don't give a shit about any of that. I want to be the Thomas Edison slash, um, you know,
Thomas Jefferson of our age and, um, you know, elect me as president and we're going to reform
the constitution and reset this whole goddamn system. I mean, that's my, that's my hope for
my kids because the other going the other direction, you know, it could be decades of pain, you know,
you know, trying all these other solutions that won't work. You know what I mean?
I'm surprised you put the idea of a percent and Trump doing a monetary reset at 10%. Like that
seems very, very high to me. 10 seems high or 10 seems low? No, 10 seems high. I think that would
be the most ballsy move by any president ever, probably. I think that's right. But think about
it. Think about it. I mean, it's going to come down to Basant. And Basant basically said,
we need a new Bretton Woods and I want to be at the table when it happens.
They understand it. Moran understands it. I mean, Trump might realize that,
that, you know, if he lets, I mean, let's say, let's say it's 2028 and inflation's raging and
it looks like Vance is going to lose and blue team's going to win. You know, why not, why not
throw a Hail Mary pass and just say, screw it. You know, let's try and reset this whole goddamn
thing. And, you know, he'd get challenged in the courts and everything else, but, you know, Nixon
did it. FDR did it. Lincoln did it. You know, I mean, the money to monetary stuff is supposed to
be controlled by the constitution, you know, article in section eight and Congress, but, you
know that's not what's happened there's a practical matter the chief executive has done it
and you know it's i i i think it's 10 i do i i think it's i think there is some possibility i
think they you know you have to remember these guys i mean in my opinion for all their and there's
there's some good things about them there's there's a lot of flaws about them i mean don't you know
don't get me started on the epstein files but um you know or doge uh trump coin trump and melania
coin, right? But, you know, I think they are thinking, you know, about what's truly best for
America and maintaining our sovereignty and our leading position in the world versus, you know,
a couple, I mean, look, I don't love our government, but I think I love it more than I love the Russian
government and the Chinese government. And so, you know, and I think they do too. And I think
they basically want to try to maintain our position of leadership. And, you know, returning
to sound money in this way would be, in my view, would keep us in a leading position,
particularly if they have Bitcoin in the picture. I mean, because I don't think China has made any
kind of a bet on Bitcoin. And I think China has a lot more gold than they say they have.
So leapfrogging China with a Bitcoin piece of the whole solution would be a big positive in my view.
Yeah. I mean, the risk I'm sure they would have to calculate is whether it's worth it to give up
being like the global hegemon. But I mean, I think it would be an amazing thing to happen.
I don't know. You may be right, Ted. It may be high. I mean, maybe I'm a dreamer. I don't know.
It's probably, sadly, we probably just keep stumbling along down this road
until it gets so painful that everyone demands a solution. I mean,
if we get kind of South America-style inflation in the double digits,
you know i mean this country has been through so much and people are hurting so badly
and you can already see it you know in so many different measures of the social fabric being
torn um you know i it's it i i pray that at some point in time you know the large remnant within
this country will stand up and say god damn it give us politics give us politicians who are willing
to you know to balance the budget and return to a sound monetary unit i mean you know i mean
Another data point you may not be aware of Judy Sheldon is a sound money person she a gold person She proposed a treasury bond with a gold piece or gold back into it or gold exchange clause in it so that you would be protected in terms of the purchasing power of your principal And you know Andy Sheckman says
Sheldon told him that she was in a meeting with Trump and Trump said, that's a great idea. Maybe
we do that in July of 26 when we have the 250th anniversary of the country. We introduced that
bond. So, I mean, these, these ideas are not, they're not completely, you know, alien or far
fetched, you know, to, to the people who are in office today. Now that doesn't mean they're going
to do them. I mean, the, the idea of like a goldback bond or a bit back or a bit bond is,
seems like a no brainer to me, that kind of thing I could see happening. And I guess that would be a
step in the right direction towards returning to a sound money standard. Absolutely. Yeah, no,
absolutely and they should do both of those things tomorrow yeah i mean it's um and it's not it's not
that painful or that hard to do i mean that's that's a that's a step it doesn't fully solve it
but it gets you know it gets you thinking and i mean they tried to kind of do it i mean they were
you know what they were hoping what was sent was hoping was that these stable coins were going to
solve the problem that there'd be enough stable coin demand for all those treasures but if you
actually run the math you look at the size of the stable coin market versus the size of the treasury
market, sabre corns are just too small still, and they're not growing fast enough to absorb it.
So that's not going to bail them out. I mean, they've been kind of throwing Hail Marys, right?
I mean, or they've been, you know, Doge was a Hail Mary, you know, Elon, we're going to save two
trillion. Oh, no, well, we'll save a trillion. Well, maybe this kind of doesn't work. Oh, shit.
I'm fed up. I'm smart. I'm not wasting my time here. I'm gone. I mean, it's sadly, sadly, it's a
very, very broken system and reforming it is just no piece of cake. So, you know, but I mean, I, I,
I believe in a higher power. So I think this higher power sent us Bitcoin. And I think that,
you know, we're basically, Bitcoin is going to smash the system, whether they like it or not.
And the, the only real issue is on what time scale. And, you know, I, I kind of think that
all this, I mean, fourth turnings tend to last between 20 and 30 years. This one started in 08.
so 2028 is the short end of the line and 2038 is the long this will get resolved probably in the
early 30s in my opinion we're not too far away not that far away actually if we're you know
talking you know five six seven eight years so i mean we're getting to the point where it's you
know we're serious now right i mean these metals moves are serious i i said on twitter and a lot
of people laughed at me but i said on twitter you know wouldn't it be ironic if silver was the
Lehman Brothers of this cycle. I mean, there's somebody, you know, if some big banks are short
silver, you know, they're going to go, they could go BK. And if they do, their governments will have
to bail them out. And then that will lead to, you know, all the leverage in the system could
come cascading down. And, you know, there's your big print, right? So one of the questions I've
always had for you, Larry, and I've never actually properly asked you. So since the first time I
think I ever spoke to you. You've been talking about how gold price was suppressed for decades.
I guess this is a two-part question. Do you think that suppression is ending? And also,
the second question being, how do we avoid that for Bitcoin?
That's a great question. Yeah. So yes, I do think it's ending because people are demanding
the physical and you're at the stage where we can see the man behind the curtain and we don't
believe him. So it's like, give me the gold. So yes, I think to answer your first question,
You know, something that's happening for gold.
Bitcoin thing is interesting.
There is paper Bitcoin.
I mean, if you go to the Binance Perpetual Futures, you know, it has grown a lot.
You can go and you can buy paper Bitcoin and somebody can sell you paper Bitcoin.
And you've got to put a contract on the Bitcoin price and no Bitcoin ever, you know, that was demand that you had, but no Bitcoin ever got purchased.
So that market has grown a lot.
James Check, checkmate, one of your country mates, has done a really good job of this.
He's got some great charts.
You can subscribe to a service to get them, but we do.
And that whole market has grown quite a bit.
I've often said that they had 50 years to perfect the gold manipulation scheme.
And they had Cayman Islands entities.
They had central banks that owned it.
They had the BIS.
They had all these different things.
Bitcoin's a different animal.
It's a lot harder.
One, it's not as old.
Two, the suppression mechanisms aren't as developed.
And three, one of the things that Bitcoin can do that gold never has done,
Bitcoin can go up 6x in six months, right?
And so, you know, when they had a problem with gold,
I mean, a bad year for them in gold was 20% and 30%.
Well, they'd sell into it, create a narrative,
drive it back down.
And even if they needed to print the money
to cover the 20% or 30%,
that wasn't a lot of money on a relative
to keeping the whole system going basis.
When you're short something and it goes up 6x,
that's, you know, that's a come to Jesus moment, right?
I mean, you know, so if you're suppressing it
with paper Bitcoin and the price goes, does that.
In fact, that's part of what drives it to go up the 6X
is the fact that, you know, when we break through this 26,
you're going to see people scramble
that are on the wrong side of that trade.
I mean, there's a big pair on Wall Street that said,
you know, they had a pair trade
where they're long with triple Qs and short Bitcoin.
And that pair trade has actually worked
because the triple Qs have hung in there
and Bitcoin has failed.
I think it's a stupid trade
because I think the triple Qs are overvalued.
I think Bitcoin is undervalued.
but as long as it works, it works until, you know, they get too far out over their skis and then it
reverses. And that's what causes Bitcoin to trade like the wild animal it trades at. And so what I
think few people understand is how when this thing does hit, when this next wave does hit,
it's not going to 140, guys. It's going to 250 or 300 or 350. I mean, because there will be so much,
you know, there'll be two things happening. There'll be all the shorts who have to cover
or else they're going to get their faces ripped off.
And then it'll be a whole new category of long D-gens
who'll come in and who'll lever it and go long it, right?
And that's what'll shove it to 400.
And then from 400, by the way, it'll correct back to 150.
But I mean, it's the nature of a speculative asset
that's being adopted.
You know, this is, and if you go look
at a very long-term price chart of Amazon,
which is a similar network-based business,
it had multiple, you know, one had 190% correction
and multiple 60, 70, a lot of 40, 50% corrections.
I mean, either it's going to take over the world
or it's going to die.
And right now, Bitcoin's in the, you know,
right now we're kind of hearing,
oh, it's not, I mean, I just saw a tweet this morning
from a gold guy.
Well, not really looking like digital gold, is it?
And I was just kind of, you wait.
Okay, you know, just wait.
You just relax.
You know, it's not a straight line,
but, you know, I'll take the other side of that bet
and in two years, we'll see who looks right.
So you don't think it's an issue that so much Bitcoin is now being owned in a non-self-custodial way through the options on Ibit, strategy or treasury companies?
I don't. Yeah, that goes to the issue of are they going to grab it all? And I suppose that's a possibility and it's always a risk.
But let's be honest, Danny. I mean, we had to have the ETF. We had to have corporate adoption.
We had to have nation state adoption, sovereign wealth fund adoption.
And all of those things had to happen or this asset wouldn't become what we thought it was going to become.
So they're all net good.
I mean, as you know, I'm a real self-sovereignty nut.
And I think, you know, having control of your coins is critical.
But that, you know, for people who don't want to do that or can't do that, you know, the 6102 risk, I don't view it as being that large yet.
I mean, I think it's one of those things we've got to watch.
you know how dystopian does our government get i mean you know let's i mean let's map it out so
let's say it's now 2028 and sadly red team loses blue team wins you know and we've got i don't know
stephanie kelton's the treasury secretary and the narrative develops that this great keynesian
monetary system that we've had going for all these years that's being ruined by these gold and silver
and bitcoin people and we need to tax that shit at 90 in fact we need to go further than that
we need to just seize it because they're ruining this country.
They're ruining the financial system.
And so we're going to seize it.
And here you go.
Here's your cash.
Send us your Bitcoin.
Well, if you're in an ETF, Fidelity and BlackRock,
they're going to comply with the law and send the Bitcoin in and give you the cash.
The cash will buy less the next day.
But that's just the way it's going to go down.
Same is true with the gold and silver.
And that's one of the possibilities.
It's one of the reasons why I sincerely feel like we've got to make a lot of it.
And by the way, the other thing that's going to happen with absolute certainty if you study history is taxes are going to go up.
I mean, just, you know, it's just, it's, we've been lucky to have such a low tax rate environment.
I mean, you got to remember when Reagan came in in 80, you know, top marginal tax rate in the United States was like 70%.
You know, I mean, right?
I mean, it's, I mean, there's been, and, you know, with all this wealth inequality, I mean, you think a blue team in 2028 isn't going to jack taxes on everybody?
Of course they are.
It's going to be horrible, which is also another reason why, and I'm not suggesting anybody don't pay their taxes or cheat or any of that kind of crap.
I'm just saying that if you own money that's got no counterparty in your own possession and you lose it in a boating accident, I don't know.
How are they going to tax it?
I mean, good luck with that, right?
But it's a real consideration, right?
Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely true.
The 6102 is a tail risk.
I think it's obviously possible.
I don't think it's likely,
but I could 100% see them taxing Bitcoin
at an insane rate.
Oh, absolutely.
And using us as scapegoats for the system.
Oh, absolutely.
Those damn sound money people,
Jesus Christ,
look at what they've done to our beautiful kids.
How dare they want to save their money.
Yeah, exactly.
I can't believe that they pulled this off.
Right?
And so, yeah,
you really are seeing these camps dividing.
between the socialist communist side of the world and those of us who believe in liberty and freedom
and all the things that are in the constitution. We've got to fight like hell to make sure that
our side wins. I think our side will win. We're heavily armed. That's a positive, right?
Not here in Australia.
Well, I know you guys aren't. Yeah, but you've got brave guys that'll go tackle guys with rifles.
That guy was a stud.
Yeah, that was insane.
That was absolutely insane.
While the police were terrified.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Larry, I always love to talk to you.
Is there anything that's happening in the macro world at the moment
that we've not talked about that you want to?
Well, let's see.
I don't know.
No, I mean, I think we've kind of hit most of the high points.
I mean, I guess the big thing we didn't really talk about
was what happens with the Fed becoming less or completely non-independent.
Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, we haven't talked about that. I think that in general,
it'll be interesting to see because in general, the history of the Fed has been that the chairman
kind of pushes whatever the direction is and he beats everybody else into accepting
his decisions. I mean, that's kind of behind the scenes what occurs.
But as a practical matter, they actually really can vote and do vote. And so, you know, I don't
think I've ever been, you know, and occasionally they'll have a few dissents, but, you know,
it's never like gets down to a split vote where one person swings it. You know, it could become
a very, very political organization. And Trump has made it very clear that he wants to get as many
seats and he wants people who see it the way he sees it. And he wants lower interest rates. And so,
you know, I think you got to believe he's going to kind of get them. I don't know how far, how much,
how quick, but I think he's going to get them. And, and honestly, you know, we kind of, you kind
of need them. I mean, if you look at all the, the budget deficit, I mean, the, the, the interest
expense is about a trillion two at the current run rate. I mean, you know, if, if interest rates go
up, I mean, it gets worse, right? I mean, that's your debt, death spiral. And so, but if you, if
you could take the average interest rate down to one and a half percent, now that would, you know,
that would seriously help in terms of balancing the budget right now you know it would also create
massive growth in m2 which is inflationary so you know pick your poison right but i think
i think you know this administration i mean it's interesting to me i mean another thing we haven't
talked about we haven't talked about the supreme court right because the supreme court's going to
rule on these tariffs i mean and it's it's become very clear i read the journal i read everything
very carefully it's become very clear to me that you know the court wants to say no these are
tariffs really should be part of Congress, not the executive branch. But Trump has drawn it so,
you know, he said, well, how are we going to give the money back? And it's a national security. I
mean, everything's being framed in terms of existential national security, fighting China,
winning the overall war, you know, for being, maintaining, quote unquote, our empire, our
position in the world. And in that, if you use that argument, it's kind of like, what's the
counter-argument. You can do anything.
If they
say, look, this is an existential threat,
the budget's going to blow up the
country,
we've got to take interest rates down, fine.
Then the bond market blows up
and they say, well, that's an existential
threat. We can't pay big money on our bonds
so we're going to start buying them.
Yield curve control.
Danny, that's going to
happen.
Okay. I mean, that is going to happen. That has to happen. Mathematically, that literally has to happen. And I know it. I believe it. Most sound money people know it and believe it. But I think the average person doesn't believe it and won't believe it until it actually happens. But when it happens, they'll wake up and they'll believe it and they'll go, holy shit, this guy was right.
you know it it'll happen and and at that point in time you know money supply is going to explode
again and and we're we're right back to you know where we are so i mean i laid this all out in the
book and so it just you know i mean it's it's interesting to me the book's done pretty well
i sold 50 000 copies but which people tell me that's great i think it sucks why do i think it
sucks because there are hundreds of millions of people out there and it's kind of like you guys
you all need to know this.
And so we really got to get it to go viral
because if you want to protect yourself from this thing,
which seems to be a very high mathematical probability,
the only way to do it is to fully understand it.
But I think it's coming.
So I think I would end it on that note
unless there's someplace else you want to go.
No, that's perfect.
I mean, I think 50,000 books is pretty impressive, Larry.
Well, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thanks.
But I always love talking to you.
Maybe yield curve control is the big print.
We'll see what happens.
I think one of the most interesting things about late-stage fiat
is that these conversations just get more and more interesting.
Well, they do.
And something will surprise us, too.
Something will happen that we couldn't even foresee,
and we'll get there that way.
I mean, who could have foreseen COVID, right?
Exactly.
The math is, you know, I keep coming back to, you know, the math is what it is.
And so how are you going to resolve it with this mathematical problem?
It's just too hard to solve any other way.
Yeah.
Well, let's close out.
We'll sell a few more copies of the book.
Where do people go and buy the big print?
Yeah, so I'll just show the cover.
So the book is available on Amazon.
It's interesting.
I can't get a publisher.
And the reason I can't get is too edgy, which is fine.
But it's there.
It's hardcover paperback.
ebook and then also Walker read an audio book. It's about 12 hours if you listen to it. So,
yeah. And, you know, I wrote it because I wanted to orange pill the world. I wrote it because I
want to try and protect the average person. I tried to write it with enough detail to support
my argument, you know, and the facts, but in a simple enough way that, you know, you didn't need
an economic background and you shouldn't be intimidated by it. An average person can read it.
You know, I mean, they could be a nurse or, you know, karma can. I mean, it doesn't matter who you
are. You know, if you've got a functioning brain, you can read it and go, oh, I get it. Here's how
they're screwing me and here's what I got to do. So, and they are screwing you and there is something
you can do. So that's, those are, you know, those are both good things to understand. Right.
Yeah. It's an awesome book. I love that. It's not like a textbook. A lot of the Bitcoin books end
being like you're reading a dense textbook. Oh, yeah, but they're great books. I mean,
honestly, I look at Lynn's book, I look at Sage's book, and I'm jealous. Those are fantastic books.
And honestly, I borrowed heavily from all these people. I borrowed heavily from Luke Groman. I
mean, you know, I think what I've done and what people told me I'm decent at, and I'll accept the
compliment, is that I can take these complicated things and I can put them in words and everyone
can understand and indense it in a crisp way so that people can, quote unquote, get it. And so
So I thought, you know, I'm 68 years old.
I've seen how this country's deteriorated.
I know how broken it is.
It really pisses me off.
I want my kids to live in a better world.
And so, you know, I thought, I've got to tell the story of how we got here.
Because it's a fascinating story.
And once you see it, you know, you can't, as you know, you can't unsee it.
And then, you know, I challenge anybody to read this book and not become a Bitcoiner.
I mean, I've had some very, very skeptical friends who've read it and go,
oh shit, I get it.
I'm in. There you go.
There you go, right?
So thanks, Tad.
Those other books are great, but it's nice
to have one that's like a narrative.
It's a bit easier to read. It's easy to
understand. But go buy Larry's book.
Thank you, Larry. Always love talking to you, man.
I hope I'll see you soon at some event.
I'm sure I will. We'll get an event, for sure.
Thanks, man. Take care. All right. Thank you.
Thank you.