Mark and Dylan LeClair Talk Bitcoin Risk and The Big Picture

we have today. I have on with me a returning guest, Dylan Leclair. He is a macro strategist. He is a senior analyst at the bitcoin magazine Pro and he is uh, he's young, but he's years ahead of his age. This kid is so smart. I love talking to him, and we cover a lot of ground. We're talking the big macro picture, what's happening in the global macro, what's happening with the Fed, FED policy, liquid in the financial system.

We talk about the potential risks of Japan them moving up their yell curve control, which shows are potentially flinching. Then we dive down into risk assets. We take a look at bitcoin, we look at big potential risk with gray scale bitcoin trust, the tether situation, so and so much more. Let's go ahead and just jump right in with Dylan. All right, Dylan, here we go. Long overdue. I've had you once on the show. I'm excited to have you back against so much stuff to discuss. Uh. So,

first of all, thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thanks for having me on Mark, it's going to connect again. I saw each other in Los Angeles a couple of months back, and uh, certainly a lot of a lot of transpired since then, so we got some stuff to catch up on. It makes our jobs easier when there's actually stuff to talk about, right. Um, I started making content for bitcoin and twenty sixteen then I made crypto content.

I I'm not really ashamed to admit I did for a while twenty nineteen I kind of just got off that and just went back to bitcoin only. But I remember, um, like nineteen like there was just nothing to talk about, Like there was nothing going on, like in the depths of the bear market. Uh, this bear market has been fireworks. There's plenty to talk about. Um, I want to talk about Let's let's start like macro macro and then let's

kind of like dive down into that. So let's start with the big macro picture, which it seems like regardless of what any on chain data or technical analysis or even fundamental analysis tells us, it seems like the macro pictures in charge. And when I say the macro, like the dollar, the FED. So let's let's start there. Um, let's talk about the Fed. You know, obviously they started

they said they were going to raise rates. Well, first they said they weren't even thinking about thinking about Then they said they weren't gonna raise rates for four years. Then they said, okay, we're gonna start raising rates in November, and risk assets have just continued to sell off. They've raised rates at the fastest and most aggressive rate in history. Um. It seems like they're about to break something, which Powell said he's happy to break something because they can rebuild it. Um,

which kind of shows what they're doing. UM. I tend to kind of take them at their word. They're not really trying to surprise the markets, are trying to really kind of project what they're doing. What's your view on this whole macro picture of what's going on? And kind of where rat in the cycle have they? Have they given us ultimate pain? Are we still got more pain to go? Yeah? I mean that's the that's a trillion

dollar question. Uh. I I kind of ultimately believe that there is more pain to go in this macrocycle into three. I mean I don't know the specifics obviously, Um. You know, equity bear markets, bear markets and financial assets in general are characterized by you know, face ripping reversal rallies. But I really think that higher for longer is the reality. H and and everybody trying to front run you know,

this pivot, especially equity investors. Right, the more that financial conditions loosen across the board, uh, the more rooms paradoxically, you know, the more that people buy the dip and the more that people chase uh chase stocks here, that the more room it actually gives the FED to tighten

the belt more. Um. And so we kind of see this play out, uh and kind of this uh this uh like jigsaw pattern throughout two where you know, think it too bearish and then and then it reverses, Volatility comes back in and Pala goes Nope, guys like just pack it up, go home. Um. So I don't necessarily think that, like you know, UM, three thousand on the

SNP is going to happen tomorrow. But I do think that most of the of the kind of the repricing and global assets and in global financial markets was due to the discount rate rising rapidly obviously UM, and that was because of FED tightening, but also bond investors realizing, Okay, if inflation, if we're out of this disinflationary regime and potentially entering a new one, what's what's this new cost of capital? How should I be you know, pricing the

discount rate ten years out, thirty years out. And so I think, you know, the SNP at four thousand, there's you know, the equity risk premium if you look at say, and that's a big word, but if you look at just say you know, because investing is relative, right, so if you look at bonds compared to equities, it's actually kind of paradoxically it's equities are more expensive here than they were at the beginning of two relative to bond markets.

So I think that that's something that investors should keep in mind, UM, just so they're not surprised if we do see some more downside, because I I still think that until said otherwise, Right, the FED pivot is kind of this more and more so buzzword than anything, and a pivot is actually going to require some real pain to be felt an employment, housing, and more seven financial and financial markets. So that last piece that you said there, so it's going to require more pain in the economy,

the housing markets, etcetera. So, but you started out by saying that the stocks going up give the FED room more room to tighten, and so it seems to me that the FED doesn't really care about your stocks. They don't care about your house, they don't care about your retirement. They actually want to bring those downs, are trying to crush demand. What they do probably care about is obviously liquidity in the banking system. Uh, they care about the

maybe the economy unemployment, that's one of their dual mandates. Right, So, Um, do you think stocks being high actually gives them room to tighten or do they not care about that and really they're looking at again the employment and like bank

liquidity or do you see it more holistically? Yeah, I think that just you know, a lot of investors, um kind of haven't maybe not haven't realized but there was somewhat of a regime change in May two, right where for the past few decades investors were were rewarded with buying the dip, and the FED and global central banks could really inject an unlimited amount of liquidity and and uh,

it wouldn't show up in consumer price inflation. Obviously. We we you know, saw cp I at forty year highs, and the FED came out and said, all right, well, we really got to get this lower. Um. You know, inflation low inflation is one of our core mandates. And we see that not just in the FED, but the euro Zone, the Bank of Japan, etcetera. Right, So, um, what that means? And they literally are telling you this,

They say, we want employment unemployment higher. Right. So, so even though it's part of their dual mandate, Um, they're they're honestly really like embarking on a on a mission to reverse engineer the wealth effect, lower assets, uh and also higher unemployment to crush that demand. Like you said.

And so I don't think that job is finished. I think inflation, uh is is stickier than a lot of people expect, despite uh, you know, kind of the reversal in the year over year prince, we've seen over the last five or six months, it's still a lot higher than the two percent mandate, which is arbitrary. Yes, but some of these things, like core CPI is a lot stickier than I think a lot of investors expect um. So for that reason, I think that you know, we're

still in a tightening cycle. Until I said otherwise, And if you look at the history of of of FED pivots, they don't pivot until things get bad, and actually things often get worse after the pivot. So so we'll we'll see here. But I think, uh, you know, for for the bulls that are chasing here, uh, they might be a little bit blindsided by you know, macro conditionings, liquidity and real like economic data, not financial assets getting worse

in so we'll see how that stands. Yeah, I mean, obviously of us have a crystal ball and and and I constantly referenced the insanity that we all have to sit around and try to read some guy's mind to understand what's gonna happen with our money. I mean, it's just the stupidest thing in the world, but it's the it's the world that we have write the game. What will what what's our fate? Let's all listen to Jerome Pal.

I I often liken it to, uh the insanity I'm in southern California, but the insanity of the uh punk satani Phil or whatever. Right the groundhog, like if he comes out and sees his own shadow, like spring goes longer or whatever, and like everyone watches the groundhog and it's like that's kind of like we're all watching like Jerome Pal. Uh, but it is what it is, right, and so we so we kind of have to navigate that. But um, it seems like Jerome pal tries to be

very clear, like, hey, there's more pain ahead, pain pain, pain. Uh. He finishes to me, He's like, hey, guys, you're not listening to me, like the stock markets rallying, but like I'm telling you there's more pain, right, And it almost seems like, um, the markets are calling his bluff, like we get it. We get it, you're serious, and we get it. You're committed to sticking with it, and we get it. There's pain, and we get it. You're gonna We understand it, and we believe you, and we believe

that you believe it. But we also see the constraint that you're going to run up against, and so we're betting that we can hold on longer than you can hang on. Maybe the markets are saying something like that. Do you think maybe there's like this little chicken and egg or not a chick game of chicken going on where the markets are like, Okay, we get it, we get it, but we bet you the banking system the quity is going to dry up before um that happens. Or do you think it's just the people are stupid

and they're just trying to buy the dip? Uh? Yeah, I mean I think, um, you know, a big driver, a big driver, and equity markets is often just price agnostic passive flows. Right. It's not actually like astute active investors making you know, uh, really advanced financial decisions. It's just pensions for owen Case, plowing money uh into broad based equity and bond in disease. Right. And then and they don't even know what they're buying at what price.

They don't care right there, investing for the long term, and often that's why you see like the severe dislocations um, whether over the short term or or the long term. Right. And then you know, active managers on the margin, whether it's long, short, etcetera. Right, kind of have to clean up this mess. But sometimes the tail lacks a dog. So I do think there's excess liquidity still in the banking system. Right, there's still two trillion dollars in the

reverse repo just parked. They're getting four four and a half percent yield, right, So until that draws down meaningfully, you know there is excess liquidity in the banking system at the very least um. But yeah, I think that.

You know, Powell, he's literally said right like, there was this one I think it was a month or two back when when uh someone incorrectly during the fom CN beting said hey, bond and equity markets are rallying, and that was a lie, right, and Powell like almost like shook his head like cheese and came out like super aggressively hawkish and was like guys, listen up, like and and that was like, oh wow, he's just like he's serious. So I think over the long term, right, everybody knows, Mark,

you talked about it a lot. I talked about it a lot. These debt dynamics, right, federal debt to GDP, global debt to GDP at you know three, these things are unsustainable and the only way out is financial oppression. Monetary debasement, right, a sustained period of inflation higher than interest rates. Um so so titaning can't be the game forever. But I think to get there right, the pendulum almost has a swing to the far extreme of Oh wow, you know, the easing is a must. And I don't

think we're there yet. So is it a game of of of tea leaves and reading this magic ball? Yes? Right, but unfortunately or fortunately that's the game. You know, we're all we're all playing, Yeah, and and and again. I take him at his word. I believe the FED tries to project out what they're doing. So he said in November twenty one that they're gonna start raising rates. He didn't start raising rates until what March of so like they give you this long wide time frame. Now again

he said we wouldn't raise rates for four years. He did in two years. Now they're saying they're gonna keep rates really high. But things change. But I think when he said that would rather break things because we can rebuild them. I think you have to take that part pretty seriously. And so to your point, there's a lot of liquidity in the system. He's prepared to see a break.

I think, and again this is just my whatever, my opinion for what it's worth nothing, but I think that probably this year we see it get worse faster than he expects, and things do break, and then they need jerk reaction and blow it back sky high again. UM, but we'll see, um if we go, If we go, I guess even a little bit further. Although the FED is kind of driving that, I know, UM big news.

It seems like also I mean talking about like liquidity in the system, Japan being one of the largest holders of treasuries, UM has been selling treasuries right there, they're they're Japan is basically just like f t X right if you if you, if you look at it, like a small microcosm like ft X, created a token and a thin air their ft T token. UM. Nobody really wanted to buy the f t T token, but they manipulated the market so it made it look like there

was values, so people bought it. When nobody wanted to hold the token anymore, they started dumping the f t T token, and so then Japan then f t X was forced to try to prop it up by it, So they're selling whatever asse is they could to prop up the token, but it didn't matter. Nobody wanted to NFL. And if you look at that and then look at Japan, Japan is the same thing, right, Japan is a as a yend token. Uh, nobody wants the end token. They manipulate the market to think it has value. Now they're

stuck selling treasuries to try to prop up the end token. UM. But like it's just the only a matter of time, right, And I think the big thing that I want to I want to ask you about was the yield curve control. So what seems to kind of catch me about this story is so for people that don't really understand, is that Japan basically manipulates their bond market to kind of artificially peg the rates. And the thing that catches my eyes that they had to change the rate they're pegging at.

And it seems like I've always said that pegs are meant to be broken. Traders are always going to go after the peg. George Soros got famously rich in today from breaking the you know, the peg and the Bank of England UM and once they've given once, the traders are kind of like, Okay, now we know you're gonna give in. Does that kind of open up the floodgates?

Do you think was that like you flinched first, now you're probably gonna lose kind of sign Yeah, I think certainly adjusting that policy rate, Uh, you know, kind of a roads the credibility um and you know, people argue back and forth whether central banks have any credibility left. I think they, you know, somewhat they do, right and given that right that the Bank of Japan has a trillion dollars at their disposal. Yeah, so somewhat of an FDx type situation, but they have all quite a big

war chest to keep this game going right now. Um So I kind of think I I like to explain yield curve control, quantity of using like these kind of big terms that that seem very complex. Um like quantity of using right is printing a fixed amount of money and buying bonds at any price. Right. Yield curve control is printing potentially an unlimited amount of money to keep

the bonds at a fixed price. Right, so goes lower than this price, it goes higher than this yield Right, because bond prices and yields are inverse of each other. So if it if it goes above twenty five basis points, which they switch to fifty basis points zero point five, will print any amount of money to keep this ten year yield at this rate. And they have to do this why, because they're debt to GDP is the worst in the world. I believe it's right. So some mathematically

they need to erode their real debt burdens. And how are they going to do that, Well, they need to let inflation ramp, and they need to keep their bond yields pinned, because otherwise the sovereign, the Japanese government goes goes belly up essentially, right. So so speculators all over the market are saying, all right, well, if you're gonna print this money, we're just gonna short the end. We're just gonna short the en and and and get dollars.

And so the Bank of Japan comes in uh and and and really to kind of stem this speculate the speculators they sell a bunch of sell a bunch of dollars, and button by the end. Right, So it's almost a circular logic in a way, right, because they're printing en to buy their bonds and then they're selling selling dollars to buy the end, right, so they can keep this game going for a while because they are one of

the world's biggest holders of treasuries. But eventually, right, the speculators who are both shorting the bonds and the end are gonna, you know, maybe not break the Bank of Japan because they're you know, quite the titan in the market, but they're gonna, you know, they're gonna burn through that treasure chest eventually. Um. So it's gonna be really interesting to follow that. So why do you think following that

is even important? I mean, if it's if it's so far off, well, I think one of the biggest things, right is is you can see um and Bloomberg has released a couple of stories on this. Right. So there's the bond, there's the bond yields, right, but there's also the kind of the swaps, so traders, there's derivatives, and there's there's these swap rates are almost like kind of

a bond futures. And so those swap rates while the peg was at twenty five basis point zero point, those swap traders had that that policy rate at like forty or fifty basis points, so they were already front running

the move. And now those swap the swap rates for the for the ten year yield for the Bank of uh for the Japanese government bonds are at about eighty nine basis points, so eight zero point eight zero point nine percent, right, so they're already front running that next kind of capitulation move um by by shorting these bonds.

And I think what the the key here is is that sovereign debt, rather whether whether it's the Eurozone or the you know, U. S. Treasuries or or Japanese government bonds, right these are the biggest markets, sovereign debt is fungible on a on a on a FX hedged basis. What I mean by that, it means that global debt, especially from sovereigns, that that won't nominally default on their debt. Right, a corporation may or may or may not default on

their debt. Well for a sovereign, you know, they're just gonna print the money essentially, so they're never gonna nominally default on their debt. So there's derivatives that that you can basically hedge out the currency risk, So investors of Japanese government bonds would say, hey, maybe I'll just hedge

my yen exposure and buy treasuries instead. So, so when the Bank of Japan is printing a ton of money to keep their bond yields artificially suppressed, that actually affects the bond yields of every other market in the world. And so you saw when they capitulated, and when they went from twenty five basis points to fifty basis points, global bond yields immediately ratcheted upwards. Right, So bonds sold off.

And so I think that's that's the kind of the move here, is that you know, who knows what their policy you will go to next? Right, They certainly have a huge treasure chest and are willing to burn through it, but the yen the and really that the Japanese government bond market is basically one of the one of the biggest currency is one of the biggest bond markets in the world, aside from the dollar and the treasury market. And so you know, they own a whole bunch of it.

They own the government bonds. But depending on where those yields go global markets could react quite quite meaniqually Okay, So, um, it's it's interesting for traders. It maybe isn't as important for the global macro picture because they have quite a long runway of a trillion dollars worth of bonds in front of them, So nothing really imminent there. It's more just kind of interesting than it is potentially imminent imminent moves for the rest of the global market. I think

that's fair to say. I mean, certainly some good to keep an eye on. Um, you know, maybe for the average investor, uh, that's just you know, maybe passively holding up a portfolio or investing for the long term. It's it's you know, following the yen or the Japanese government bond policy rate probably believe isn't you know, top of top of mind. But for for you know, macro traders and the weeds, this is certainly one of the bigger

variables in the market. Yeah, I think. I think when it eventually breaks, uh, then it will have massive impacts through the global economy. But you know, maybe that doesn't happen for a while. So now that we've kind of talked about the big macro, is there anything else big on the big macro before we maybe kind of start diving down in anything on the ECB or Euro that is like maybe big and happening that you see. Yeah, I mean I would just say, um, I expect you

despite the recent weakness. Um. And I don't really have like a set timeline for this, for this thesis or or for this this move, but I think that the recent dollar weakness is something that I don't expect to

continue forever. Right. You know that everybody says I and I agree over the long term, the dollars is guaranteed to debase and value, right, But what's you're what you're comparing it to when you're looking at like say the the d X Y, the Dixie um or when you're looking at you know, FX markets, you're comparing it to a basket other fiat currencies. Right. So uh, the Euro, the end, the pound, um, the Yuan right um uh,

Well the biggest component of the Dixie is the Euro. Right. Uh. These are these their economies, their demographics, and and their monetary policy is actually in a far worst position than

the U S and the and the FED. Right. So, so you know people say the FED is trapped, Well, you know, the bank of Japan is a lot more trapped than the FED ever was, and the and the ECB is a lot more trapped than the FED also was or is right, So um, I just suspect at some point, whether it's you know, next week, next month, next quarter, next year, I think this the dollar pool market against other currencies will continue against other currencies will

continue because there's just this massive global dollar short position. Right, There's all this dollar denominated debt around the world. The U S is um and has been for the last fifty plus years the world reserve currency, and so because

of that, there's this natural global short position. Right. People that are familiar with short squeezes and stocks, right, whether it's like meme stocks like game stock up, or you know, they're short squeezes in Tesla or whatever it may be, right, But the biggest short position in the world is dollars.

So so I think that's kind of an important dynamic to understand as as we are in a tightening cycle, as the fat is tightening the belt, as rates an interest expense around the world for variable rate debt goes up, you know this game of musical chairs that is this global debt based monetary system the music is slowly stopping, right, And I'm not saying the music is gonna outright halt, but as these you know, as these chairs fill up, it's going to be interesting to see how it all

plays out for the dollar and for for risk assets. Yeah, and risk assets have been catching a bid. Even specifically, gold has been catching a bit. I mean, if you look at the d X Y where it really started breaking down, and I mean that's right when gold and silver and pressures medals really caught a bit and done

really well in that same time frame. And if you then go, well, DIXIE has only measured against these other basket of currencies which are even more weak than potentially the dollar rallies again, and what does that do for risk on assets? So typically you know, gold has moved off of real rates. Um, but it seems to really be correlated with the Dixie for now, So I guess we'll have to kind of keep an eye on that.

But um, if we if we jump down even further back into risk assets, I mean, risk assets have been catching a bit. Specifically, bitcoin and cryptocurrency has been catching a bit. Bitcoin is trying to get to that nineteen dollar level, which is pretty amazing. We've been kind of stuck in this like sixteen thousand dollar range for for months now. UM Bitcoin was kind of almost traded like

a stable coin there for a minute. You know, I've talked about extensively, and I know you dig into the on chain data a lot, and you know, really simply, I've always believed that UM. I think I think a lot of economics can be really boiled down simply, right, Like markets stopped going down when there's no more sellers, markets stopped going up and there's no more buyers, right, the price is typically set by supplying demand, right, things

like that. And so if you look at like you know, from the Tera Luna Domino through the three Arrows and Celsius all the way to UM and then and then we had Celsius and then we had the minor capitulation where the miners basically dumped all their bitcoin and the bitcoin kind of hit that fifteen sixteen thousand dollar price point, and it seemed like we hit capitulation there. Then you see like ft X happened and it didn't really push

bitcoin down anymore. Of course, we found out bitcoin uh ft X had what one point four billion of a bitcoin on their books and didn't have any to sell, so maybe it had something to do with it. There was no more sellers, And it seems like bitcoin kind of found that bottom massive buying volume when it tried to touch that, you know, just below the sixteen thousand and fifteen thousand dollar price point. Um, so it seems like it's found to bottom. It's now starting to catch

a little bit of a bid here. I'm just curious what you think about that potential bottom. Uh, do you think it's found a good bottom, is an intermediate bottom? Or do you think really back to this global macro pictures still really in charge and we have to kind of see what happens there. Yeah, I think you know, in terms of the amount of fourth selling that happened in two, it's gonna be extremely hard to I mean,

maybe even impossible to replicate that again. Right. Uh, they're at a certain point, especially for an absolutely scarce you know, fixed supply asset, the marginal seller does get exhausted. Right. So if you haven't sold your bitcoin uh in the latter months of one or two all two? Right, Uh, I'm not sure what's going to get you to to to dump all of your bags here, right, and certainly like if if equity is reverse, if the dollar strengthens, if global bonds sell off again, Uh, it's all off

the table. But in terms of like bitcoin specific crypto specific force de leveraging, I think we've seen the brunt of that. But I think there's a key distinction between you know, if the low is in or at least you know, the low in terms of a range, right, whether it's you know, the tick of fifteen five or whatever it may be, or just like this sixteen k

to eighteen k, twenty k range, whatever it is. I think there's a real difference between Okay, maybe the lows in which I believe is a strong possibility, versus the start of a new secular bull market. Right. So uh, you know, well, I think we'll see but I think three at least for bitcoin, at least for the start of it. Um, and maybe we see a nice you know, bear bear market rally, but I think it's going to

be kind of characterized by a lot of chop. Right. Uh, There there are buyers a bitcoin here, and anecdotally and on via the data, I can see that there are priced agnostic buyers a bitcoin at any price that just continue to buy a hold and accumulate and not sell it. Right, So there are those flows, But in terms of you know, uh kind of this up only up only you know, generational bull market resuming at least today, I think that's a little bit of a waste off. So I think

we got some time. I think bitcoin will consolidate for a while. Could certainly be wrong there, but I kind of expect just uh, you know, minimal volatility relative to maybe one up only bull market and relative to the forced de leveraging of two I think, you know, somewhat of a calmer period um fortunately or not for for

bitcoin is ahead in sure. I mean that's what it always happens, right, That's that's the cycle of a market, right, So at the bottom you have you have the fouria at the top, right, the volatility of the top, and then the massive sell off. And so those are those two are both um traits of that. All the people that came in at the top of the mania that drove it higher are the ones that get out of the top and then force it back down and faster.

And then at the bottom, the pit of despair. Nobody wants to touch it, and so you have to kind of sit there and wallow in this very slow uh increase again until eventually it starts to catch onto people's imagination and long before even that euphoria gets there. But that's kind of the market cycle we'll see. But yeah, it just seems like it could be there. And to your point, I would agree, I don't. I wouldn't expect the big firework here, um. But then you have this

looming macro thing kind of hanging. So that seems to be the big thing which I want to come back to before we wrap it up, and I'll ask you

about that. UM. Bloomberg had put out a piece of research at the end of last year and they said that they believe that bitcoin would um turn into a risk off asset by Q three of me too if you look at the world from a bigger perspective, you know, geopolitical perspective, and how the world's kind of breaking up, and you know, supply chains are being reshaped, and uh, I believe I talked about the time we're going into

a decentralized world, We're going into a multipolar world. I think trade and supply chains is gonna suffer, right, It's gonna have to be reimagined. Um, a lot less trust. You know, there's new payment networks being set up. Um. I think that could be good for bitcoin, right, and we see a lot of nations are buying massive amounts of gold. Gold doesn't really work very well in technological age.

Do you think, like Bloomberg that maybe we could see bitcoin kind of transform from this risk on asset to maybe more of a risk off asset and could that be this year? Yeah, I think that's uh, you know, I think it's a it's a it's a good narrative and and I would be delighted to see it actually unfold um in the in the interim, I think that you know, like bitcoin, like think of it as a fraction, which it is all all financial assets arts, you know,

the new murrator, the denominator of the numerators BTC. It certainly has its own wave of adoption speculation, uh, you know, buying, selling, forced to leveraging. And then there's the USD component, right, and as bitcoin kind of monetizes across global balance sheets, uh, it's it's kind of nestling itself on the asset side of the global balance sheet. So there's assets you know, equities, bonds.

Bonds are both on the asset and liability side. Bitcoin is only an asset, it's not a liability of anybody, similar to gold. And then on the liability side there's you know, dollar, zeros en all the currencies. And so I think that it's uh, you know, people necessarily are saying, you know, when's the decoupling? Is is bitcoin ever going to not be a risk on asset? And and personally like, I don't think the correlation with global risk is actually a bad thing. I think it's almost a good thing. Um,

So we'll see. I think there's gonna be you know, momentary, momentary periods of decoupling or you know, like for instance, bitcoin could have an update due to a short squeeze or you know, a big buyer coming in while stocks are down and the dollars up. Um. But you know, a sustained period of inverse correlation to global risk is not something that I really expect here, um, But again, would be delighted to see it happened because that would

certainly be a really strong narrative shift. Now you one thing that you've been all over and you're getting quite the following for is uh is breaking down some of these big moves you know, FTX, etcetera. And one you've been following a lot is this whole gray Scale GBTC thing now we talked about, you know, has the market bottomed as it has exhausted seller as you think that maybe it has exhausted sellers sort of like I was kind of saying, but what is the risk of a

massive sell off in the GBTC thing? Why don't you kind of framed that that deal up for us? Yeah? So you know, essentially gray Scale GBTC as a closed end bitcoin trust. Um. Actually, Mark, do you want me to like kind of break down what GBTC is or are you let's let's let's do that give it a quite a little over you Okay? Cool? Yeah. So so GPTC as a trust offered by gray Scale. Gray Scale as as a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, a big

conglomerate in the crypto industry. Uh. It was kind of the first bitcoin trust that was offered via O t C over the counter rails. Right, so, um, you know you could buy it in New Roth, Ira or you know, uh in especially in one I was kind of a favorite of Wall Street to get bitcoin like exposure. This was before you know, the micro strategies of the world.

A lot of the bitcoin miners go public before future z etf, right, so there wasn't really an easy vehicle for bitcoin like exposure to be access So so GBDC was that product, right. And and because it was a closed end trust, there was only creation of shares, no no redemptions, right, so you could bring dollars or bitcoin to to gray Scale and they would give you a shares of gptc um. And and because it was only one way, there was traded at a premium for a

long period of time. So it was you know, say you'd you'd bring a dollar to gray Scale and they'd give you GPDC shares that were locked for six months. That's a big story. Uh. And and now those years a premium would say trade out a dollar twenty um. So so there was a lot of investors that even didn't really have much like interest in getting bitcoin exposure that would that entered the g BTC trade just to kind of harvest that premium. And that was a huge, huge,

huge driver in the bull market. Right. So so everybody thinks of sailor Um, which he was a big driver of the bull market. But everyone thinks Sailor was the biggest catalyst um. Sailor bought, you know, hundred thousand bitcoin.

He has a hundred thirty thousand bitcoin micro strategy currently does gray Scale from twenty two when they stopped buying bitcoin after the premium went to a discount, gray Scale bought like four hundred thousand bitcoin, right, So, so they were a massive, massive driver of this bull run momentum um.

And what happened was that premium um as a bunch of you know, as it turns out, a bunch of firms were levering up to take on this trade, and and a subsidiary of of DCGH, Genesis Global, a trading firm, was lending against these collateralized GBTC shares to to lever up and and kind of repeat the trade. Right, So, there's a bunch of people going in giving bitcoin to to gray Scale, getting GBDC shares. They'd give those shares the Genesis borrow more money and do the trade again.

Three arrows. You know, one of the industry's biggest hedge funds did this trade and made a whole lot of money. As it turns out, GBDC is not a very liquid market at least relative to bitcoin and all that leverage. As that premium in February whittled to zero and actually turned into a discount and net asset value, UH, the one of the biggest cattles for the bull market actually

turned to be a big drag. And so right now that that premium or slash discount, the net asset value for GBDC shares is about thirty six percent discount that reached as lowest fifty and as it turns out, yeah, so so it has been getting a bid recently and there are some activist campaigns to organize shareholders um and so so we'll see what happens there. But those around six hundred thousand, six d eight thousand bitcoin wrapped in

this trust and there's no kind of way out. It's almost like a hotel California of sorts UH and and a financial asset rapper. And so we'll see what happens. But I think this is one of the bigger stories and and genesis UH and and specifically d c G as this big industry conglomerate UH is kind of in the middle of of some big issues with with liquidity potentially solvency, and you have big claims from you know, say the Winkelvost Twins running Gemini Exchange, calling calling for

fraud of of the CEO Barry Silbert of DCG. So we'll see what happens. They owe Genesis a whole lot of money about nine hundred million dollars um for their yield product, geminised yield product. There's a whole bunch of kind of crypto contagion that actually still hasn't played out. That was a story of two and it's not yet finished. So I think most of that for selling, that deleveraging and solvencies has taken place. But as it turns out, that daisy chain of leverage has a few potentially a

few more victims to kind of washed ashore. So we'll see how it resolve. But I think that's certainly one of the things to watch into. Yeah, that's the thing with leverage. It works really good on the way up, and it works equally good on the way back down to destroy you. I often often call it like fire, right where like I can use fire to warm my house, or it can burn my house down. You know, like

you've got to be really careful with that leverage. But in regards to that, I mean back to the original question, Um, you don't see in your research, and you've done a lot of them, you're doing really well with it. Follow the Dylan for that if you want it, Um, But you don't see I mean, so the company DCG at the top in genesis, you know, subsidies, etcetera. You don't see any risk of like a forced liquidation. I mean, if anything, it would be returning the bitcoin back to

the owners that are owners of the trust. There's no reason why they would be like a forced liquidation or a mass dumping onto the market because of that, other than maybe going back to the owners the holders and then they want to sell it. Yeah, there's I think there's a lot of scenarios that can play out. I'm not sure how to how to quantify these things, um, And there's you know, I think that actually the smallest probability is that the status quo is remains for the

next you know, two or three or four years. That's the smallest possibility. You know, maybe that's a bolt take, um, but I just you know, off of the allegations, off of the recent momentum in shareholder activism, Uh, you know the stories that have come across the PR newswire about uh, you know the sec uh and some other you know, potentially d o J looking into d c G S operations. UM. You know, there's there's the real potential for this thing too, for the trust to be unwound or to be acquired

by new owner or manager of the trust. Um and potentially you know. One of the biggest things that's dragging out this uh, this discount, right is the fee structure. It's a two percent annual fee forever. Right. So so you know, similar to how you discount stocks earnings or a bond for you know, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. Uh, the market is discounting is two percent fee in perpetuity, right. So why would I hold GBTC shares at a two

percent feet forever when I could just hold bitcoin. So that's a big reason for the discount. Another big reason for the discount is like Genesis and DCG being levered against GBTC shares. UM. So I mean, you know that force selling that had to be absorbed didn't really have any natural buyers. Um. But in terms like what's resolved, I think there's a small, small chance. Um. And again I don't know how to exactly quantify this. I would love to if I could, UM, but I think there's

a small chance that the trust is liquidated. I don't think it would be a six hundred thousand dollar you know, a six thousand bitcoin markets sell on coin base. I think there'd be a lot of interesting, uh interested OTC buyers potentially, you know that the buyers that had GBTC

shares just stepping in with the cash they received. Um, It's really unclear how it all works legally, but I do know there's mounting pressure from regulatory bodies, from shareholders and and just you know, judging off some of the names that I've heard through the through the grape vine that are kind of interested in this, in this activist play, there's there's some serious momentum here. So um, you know,

DCG potentially is on the ropes here. Uh. And I think that there's you know, potentially some change coming over the coming I don't know aboute like, I don't have a specific timeline for it, but uh, you know, it's more momentum than there ever has been to get a

change to the structure. But the change, I guess the point I was trying to clarify for myself and for everyone else, is that the change whether that be you know, breaking it apart from dcg S grip, you know, getting silvered out of the way, putting somebody else there, or even potentially unwinding it and given the bit went back to the owners. Uh, there's not a big liquidity event. Most likely is not the base case that there's a big liquidity event off of this, And there's change for sure,

but it doesn't mean there's a mass liquidation. Yeah, okay, I agree there. Um, I think there's you know, there's a tail risk for everything. But also interestingly, Mark, Um, there's even the chance that and again, you know, unsure how to quantify this, but I do know, just off of my own intuition and just some chatter. Uh you know with some market participants that a popular trade that has arisen recently give and you know, say GPTC is

at a fifty discount to net asset value. Right, So a popular trade, um even at not maybe thirty thirty six percent to net asset value is long GBTC short bitcoin futures, right, So if that has to be unwound, what's what's the result, and I think the result is you have to unwind that short leg um. So unsure

how of how it plays. I think, you know, it could interestingly go both ways or it could just you know, kind of resolve without without a bang and just kind of a little murmur So, so we'll see what happens on a on a On a little bit of a different note, but referencing the two percent premium on the GBDC, which is a very healthy premium. I mean, it's kind of industry standard, but it is very healthy premium. And why would they want unwind it when they're making so

much money? But I recently just did a video on on counterfeit capitalism and Ponzi finance, and um, I was looking at black Stone. So black Stone has become like the largest owner of real estate like in the world, and they have this like sixty eight billion dollar breed. They call it like a reat but they call it a breat. Um. They charged three point six percent a year. They're pulling in two billion a year just off of

that alone. Uh So, anyway, put the two perspective, Blackstone is charging you three point six and and with black Stone, um, they don't you know, they it's a real estate portfolio. They don't mark to market it right, um, and they don't even bring an auditor, so they have their own internal accounting team set the value of the portfolio that they then charged three point six percent on. So um at the investors of the breat have no control over

what they're buying. So they're buying a bunch of probably toxic assets at this point, shopping centers and business parks in San Francisco, for example, who knows. You don't even know what you're getting. Um. And then you're getting uh it's not even being marked to market. Uh, they're setting it, they're controlling it, they're skimming three point six percent off the top of it. I mean, it's just a disaster, um.

So Sign of the Times, right, that was the point of the video Sign of the Times, pondsy Finance time.

That's gonna where we're mark. I think one of the most interesting things, just to just add one little quick tidbit to that point, is that you know, one of the biggest, uh, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this, you know, ten twelve year up only bull market and everything has been private equity, right, and you know private equity is this magical vehicle that has all of the upside exposure to financial asset market beta with none of

the downside volatility because these things aren't marked to market on a daily basis. And as you see with Blackstone and some other private equity funds, as the withdrawals start to come in, are those marks real? Uh? Is there by side liquidity to to meet those withdrawals. I think that's, you know, maybe a potentially a big story in it's

gonna be a real big story. Private equity is the big ponds e that I believe is gonna collapse assuming the market kind of continued on the directory that it's on, like we talked about before, If there's more pain ahead, I think private equity is going to take a massive hit.

I was reading this article by Matt Staller. He writes a substance act called Big and he talks about monopolies, and he was talking about the private equity and how they've taken over like the medical industry, the hospital industry, and they're raising all this money. They're buying the hospitals and then they buy the they own the land separately, and UH, private equity they do all these roll ups,

and they're not specialists in running these businesses. They bring in generalists to run a specialized business, and in most cases they do a horrible job at it. So they've rolled up these hospitals. They're having a horrible job. The hospitals aren't being run properly. Uh, they're going out of business.

They can't afford the lease on the land that the PE also owns, and the PE is the private equity is loaning money to the hospital so the hospital can continue to pay the land lease, which they also own. So they're loaning money to get their payments back. But because they're separate entities, then private equity can go Look, we've never missed a payment. Oh look the revenues are still coming in even though they're losing over on this side. So it's Ponzi finances. Is back to that kind of thing.

But yeah, private equity is a disaster waiting to happen. Um, you know, it'll reset like everything else. I guess. Um, Okay, what about what about tether fud. Let's talk about that for a second. Now, I got into this space in uh, as long as I can remember, there's been tether fud. Uh, tether prints you know, princes uh dollars to prop up bitcoin. You know, bitcoins price wouldn't be where it was if it wasn't for all these fake dollars. Which if that was the case, then why has it been sitting in

a sixteen thousand? Like? Can't they can't they pump up back up already? But you know, um, there's there's there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of fund right fear, uncertainty and doubtcast on to tether a couple of things. I want to ask you one, um, what do you think the reality is of some of this danger? And then to the bigger one kind of back to this, is there more mass liquidations in front of us? Does

it even matter? Right people are hold a bunch of dollars that they lose their dollars, does that matter to bitcoin? So what do you think about these two things? Yeah? I think the long term answer is no, it doesn't matter. Um. You know, like like bituoin is just this this machine that is unaware of any of us and how we interact with it, and it will continue to just chug a new block every ten minutes, and it's just this immutable network of value settlement and storage. Uh. In terms

of the dollar exchange rate, Tether is obviously a massive player. Uh. You know, like I think I believe something like fifty sixty billion dollars in market capitalization. UM has a shoddy pass for sure, potentially you know, some some kind of commingling with bit fan x. Uh. They've you know, been sued by the New York A g Uh. All of these things have you know passed question marks UM and

certainly like maybe they like that. That's the reason, right they can't get an audit is because there's there's somewhat of a shady pass. So do I hold Tether? No, I don't do. I think tether is is going to imminently collapse. No, I don't. Uh they I believe they have a big portion, a big chunk of treasuries and just based on everything that's happened in two if that, if that wasn't enough to kind of topple Tether, UH

don't really see what's going to come that will. With that being said, Tether has had a history of saying, hey, like we don't we you know, we hold just assets backing our dollars. Right, and then Celsius when they go under. Uh, It's revealed that Tether actually was lending Celsius collateralized loans,

was creating Tether's um through bitcoin collateralized loans. So Alex Maschinsky sent over some bitcoin over clatteralized of course, so Tether didn't actually sustain losses, but they printed Tether backed by bitcoin collateralized loans. So that was something that Tether said they didn't do. So are there are the questions? Certainly, um,

would that actually help support the price of bitcoin? Certainly, But at this point Tether has done you know, they used to hold all this commercial paper, all of this. They are sitting on a on a portfolio mostly short term treasuries at this point, um And so I think they're okay. I think that the yield that they're now getting on this massive portfolio is certainly going to help

bolster their reserves over the long term. UM And I don't really have a kind of an immediate doomsday prediction on Tether, like I've you know, like I've called out a whole bunch of these yield products right like to take off the box uh Celsius Voyager block five ft X, right like I've um among others rights like called for all these things to collapse before they did. Um. Do

I think there's question marks about tether? Of course? Do I think that they, you know, are the next domino that's going to collapse this entire industry and bitcoin is a a scam like all these all these you know bears are saying for the last seven years, and now

I don't believe so. Um, certainly it's a you know, a big market player, so you know, the dominant trading pairer on binance, right, But I think it's more so propping up, if it is propping up anything, it's more so propping up the broad based crypto industry rather than you know, bitcoin as a global as a global you know, free float financial asset. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that's

kind of my take. And and and I guess just kind of back to the question is that it it's propping up the entire ecosystem to to the kind of point that you made on Binance etcetera, crypto coins, etcetera.

But uh and and to your point, uh, and that's one thing that people should take from this is when you see that these like stable coins are percent reserved well reserved in what like if you're reserved in ft T token, your reservings up at zero, or like if you're like uh, um, Tara Luna was reserved in Tara token, right, Like, well then it went to zero. So reserved and what And to your point about tether, a good majority of

that is now in treasury, so it's like basically in cash. Um. But I guess the question is if if they were hypothetically um, you know, a bunch of stuff comes out, they don't have the reserves, there's a run on tether orchestrated by whatever reason, and uh and tether were to go to zero, would that really have a big effect

on bitcoins specifically? I mean they're not dumping bitcoin. I mean the people that had dollars there had those tether tokens now can't redeem it for the dollars they hoped for. But it doesn't really cause a mass liquidation of bitcoin necessarily. Nope,

it doesn't. It would be really interesting to see happen mark because um, again, like I don't think this is a high probability, but we've seen temporary kind of like so, so tether trades free flow, right, it's it's it trades against other stable coins it trades against, like bitcoin, BTC U s D. Also there's there's BTC U s D

T right. And so we've seen in the momentary kind of periods of of market panic, whether it was a collapse of terror Lune, at the collapse of ft X, we've seen tether trade from you know, a dollar to ninety seven cents, right, and it was quickly bought back up. But a lot of those traders, a lot of those people that bought tethers at cents went to tether and redeemed those redeemed them, right, so they got they got the cash, whether you know, through a bank wire or

whatever the means. Maybe so uh And and at that time, right, it was interesting to see on say a binance that the price of of bitcoin in in USD was like twenty eight thousand, and the price of bitcoin and U s DT was like right, So it would be really interesting to see, uh, you know, bitcoin pump if if you know, the denominator of BTC U s DT was collapsing, right, And it would be interesting to see kind of what percent or what share of global market value was set

by by tether. Uh And and you know, what would be the resolution I don't know, and I don't think really anybody knows. Um And and for some people, right, for some people, they say Bitcoin is un investable until Tether is out of the ecosystem. That's why That's exactly exactly what I was thinking. Um I see, I think

that's uh, you know, that's an interesting take. Um I. The the problem with that is that they might be waiting for a very very, very very long time because you know, there's a whole lot of vested interest in kind of keeping this game going. And I think, uh, you know, the longer that that Tether is is around, and you know, they have now a very liquid portfolio short term treas furies, uh, it's gonna be really hard to bank run uh or you know, to see that

that unresolved. So I'm not making any like bold predictions or not. Like, I'm not saying that there is absolutely a non zero percent chance that there's you know, bad outcomes with with Tether and with their holdings and maybe potentially with the prince of Bitcoin. But I think it's it's a you know, not it's not certain either way. I don't and I like and I don't think it would be really uh, I would really be in the in the right to come out here and make one

both claim either way. Okay, all right, Well, I think that there's definitely risk, as you said, certainly risk there. I just don't I think the risk to actually bitcoins prices maybe a little bit overblown. To your point, a lot of people said it's un investable until we figure this out. It's like, why, Like, I don't see that, Like, they're not gonna sell it now. If they had said, hey, well you know, half of our collaterals in bitcoin will shoot them that had be forced to dump the collateral,

that's not the case. So like, I just don't see why anybody would make that assumption. But but to your point, to a lot of people have I think a lot of people that are outside that are probably wouldn't buy bitcoin anyway. Uh, and they don't really understand how that works. Um. One last potential big blow up kind of just going back to are there any more sellers? Are there any more forced liquidations? Um? Something you've been talking about quite

a bit is silver Gate Bank. Now, there's a lot of problems with silver Game Bank, including potential legal problems because apparently they were handling wires for Alameda and f t X and they weren't doing proper kyc and putting money into the wrong accounts. Some who knows what will come with that? Um, lots of other risks with silver Gate. What are you seeing with risks with silver Gate? And

I guess frame that up. Yeah, So I mean I really I was aware of silver Gate and their role in the kind of the bitcoin crypto ecosystem dating back to one uh. There it was kind of big news because they were, you know, a FED member bank that was giving clatteral lized loans to micro Strategy and Marathon, um, some big public names. Right. It was the first FED member bank to to extend USD credit against bitcoin collateral.

Like that's obviously a big story. Aside from that, like, they had a really dominant role in the crypto ecosystem, the bitcoin ecosystem due to the Send Network s e N network silver Gate Exchange Network, that's what SCN stands for. Uh.

And and really that was just crypto firms. Bitcoin firms could deposit to silver Gate and then transact with each other seven uh kind of on dollar rails, so similar to kind of a dollar stable coin, but not it wasn't a public ledger and and and unlike a stable coin like tether or even a USDC, this was in an account at a FED member bank, so so they

you know, their deposits grew massively. I believe it was over tens of billions of dollars UH and and you know some of these seven of these exchanges that had trouble getting you know, official dollar rails like an ft X per se UH kind of leveraged silver Gates UH send network to do so and so UH. Post ft X collapse, there's been a ton of regulatory pressure. And that's when I really started to pay attention to them, was, Okay,

what's their dollar rails? Because this is a massive fraud FTX, al amita what they were doing, the commingling of funds. This was a massive fraud. And it took about three to four minutes for me to just land on on silver Gate's website and you know, funny enough, uh FDx collapsed on the eighth right. I went on silver Gate's website, I believe in the ninth and I posted this and on the main page they didn't even delete it yet was a quote from SPF saying, like silver Gates really

revolutionized the role of for for for blockchain companies. It's it's made this all so much easier, UM and so. And I look in you know, silver Gate connects all of these counterparties through this send network. UM so. I mean since then, the shares of silver Gate or down. Um they're down nine percent from the all time highs uh And I don't really know how it resolves. I just know that there's been a big run on their deposits, right, so they've had to sell a lot of their their

bond and securities portfolios to stem that run. They now have more excess cash than they do crypto deposits. So I don't think like an insolvency is around the corner per se. But what I do think is going to really intensifies the regulatory pressure, right not just for Silvergate, but also like say a signature bank. There's like really the only two crypto banks UH for for US UH, for US companies that that worked with US crypto firms

at scale. And due to just like the Alameda ft X money laundering situation, I think that the you know a m l Anti money laundering and you know, the the bank regulators are really going to clamp down hard here. So I mean I don't have a you know, bullish or bearish view on silver Gate stock here disclosure like I was short at the stock, I'm no longer um.

But but yeah, I think that's just an interesting story from a crypto native liquidity standpoint, is that there's only so many dollar rails here on ramps, off ramps and at silver Gate you know Serves, Circle, coin Base, Gemini like all of these big names use silver Gate at least partially for their dollar on and off ramps. So uh, depending on what happens there, that could have an impact on the on the crypto NATed liquidity. So I don't have a strong stance of how it resolves, but I

think it's something worth watching. Yeah. Uh if we put that aside, I mean, what what happens with silver Gate and uh do they stay in business or not? The stock go up down whatever, put that at the side. But if they were to go down, what does that have effect on bitcoin? If any? Uh? Yeah, So I mean there's uh really There's one one thing I think of is that you know, micro Strategy has a two

million dollar bitcoin collateralized line of credit with silver Gate. Uh, silver Gate doesn't hold the collateral, so it's not like it's gonna be a force force sell, but it would potentially, you know, there would be maybe a call of of margin or a call to to to pay off that loan. I'm unsure. I can't speak with with certainty of of how the loan documents work there, but that's a potential.

I know that that USDC, who has like eight or nine banks but banking partners, but one of one of their relationships is with silver Gate, so is potentially, uh some some risk there. I mean, again, I'm not saying that USDC is unsafe, but I just think that you know, it would put it would just kind of be another problem for a lot of these crypto company companies, and

specifically the unregulated ones. Right. So we we've seen that silver Gate, uh and and and say even Signature right have serviced Binance on and off ramps for dollars through like Shell Corps. Right, So they have a different name than than Binance because they're not a US institution, but they've you know, accessed dollar rails, same with like Huabi and other names. So who knows how many you know,

crypto crypto relationships they have disclosed. They're not underneath the surface, and so if they blew up, like I don't know if it would have an immediate impact on the bitcoin market. Right bitcoins a three hundred four hundred billion dollar asset. Silver Gates market cap is like less than a billion, So it's not like a massive, massive thing at this stage in the game, but just certainly, you know, something

just maybe keeping the back of the mind. Yeah, yeah, good, well man, we walked through a whole bunch of stuff. I feel like we've done a pretty good job there. I want to just kind of circle back to where we started at the beginning and talking about this the big fed kind of macro Outlook, you threw out something I didn't ask you out, but you said, uh you you you you mentioned the SMP going down to three thousand. We're at about four thousand now, going down to about

three thousand. Is that you're charted kind of a case of where you think it could go to this year? Uh? Yeah, I mean I I think that's certainly in the realm of possibility, probably more so than market participants expect um. I think that would that be would that be your base case? Like above fifty chance that that happens. It's a tough question mark, you're putting me on the spot. Uh yeah, I think I think we see a thirty two at least UM, and maybe not even in three UM.

One of the things that I've been pleasantly surprised with is how strong and resilient the economy has been to the rate hikes. But in terms of you know, if you just think about the pricing of of stocks, right, um, whether you look at you know, market value to g DP historically over over bloated, overvalued in two UM, that's reset a bit, but it's still historically overvalued in uh

historical measures, and so something like that. I think really the only thing that's been discounted in equities has been the discount rate. Right. Earnings haven't really been revised lower at all. If we see a recession, that will happen. And also credit standards, right, So if you just think about one of the biggest drivers of the bull market

for the last ten twelve years, then debt finance corporate buybacks. Right, So if that's done, if the boomers are retiring and forced to liquidate, right, like two was the line in the sand for the boomers actually crossing the threshold of average retirement age the biggest generation in history. So are those boomers now and that buyers or sellers of equities as they're retiring, right, So these are all things that

I think are more structural. I don't you know, I think making a call with a specific number line in the sand is like, is you know, not something that's you know, it's it's tough to do, right, But I'm not uber uber bullshe with SNP at fourth thousand, I'll say that you throwout the number three thals and I

was just circling back to that. That just for frame of reference, that's about where we were in twenty nineteen in uh so we'd kind of go back to a level we kind of sat there for most of the year. Um In reference to what you were just saying about our you know, the baby boomer generation, the largest secment of the population. They're all retiring. Will they be been

net buyers or net sellers? Will The answer is, actually they'll be net sellers because if you go back to a law that was passed in the nineteen seventies, which is called ARISA, which is basically allowed people to put money into their pensions but they have to start selling them when they retire so that the government can now recoup that tax dollars. So they were able to put money in tax free. The government knew that they would have to sell, and then they get the tax dollars back.

So there will be they're they're forced to sell, uh, And they're certainly not buyers, right, They're gonna be moving out of the market. They're forced to sell. They're not gonna be buyers. So I think there's gonna be massive downward pressure from that law. Unintended consequence of government intervention in the seventies is gonna come home to us now. And then with the interest rates so high, these corporations are gonna have a very hard time rolling over debt

and getting in getting financing at all. And over the last couple of years, the majority of the stock buybacks were being done with cheap, cheap access to credit exactly. And so you take away the cheap acts to credit, then the then the buy backs go away, and then you have the force selling from the baby boomers. There's a lot of downward pressure on stocks. I don't see where the upward pressure is gonna come from. And so I think that's gonna be a big trend to follow

for sure. Yep, I think you nailed it on the head. The biggest biggest trends for me in terms of equity markets in three two was the year of duration. Right, yields repriced higher, the valuations repriced lower. I think three the story it's earnings. We'll see how that, how that

plays out, and maybe that goes into four. And also we have credit standards, right, so credit, credit spreads, credit risk, these are the things that really equity markets today have not experienced in the last in the last two decades, and so you know, if it comes throost, then you know,

the pressure certainly remains skewed to the downside. Yeah, the one benefit that they might have is that inflation is gonna push up their earnings and it's gonna it's gonna look like maybe maybe that might help them a little bit. We'll see. But anyway, man, Dylan, we've covered so much. I think we've we've hit it all, starting with a big picture and kind of diving all the way down into kind of bitcoin risk assets and and back out

to Dylan's prediction of where the market's going. I'm just kidding. We won't put that out but anyway, man, I appreciate it so much. Uh, you can check them out Dylan Leclair Underscore on Twitter and you certainly should give him a follow. Um anything else we missed, I think we covered it all, Mark. This is a good written man, A lot of a lot of action packed our Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining me man, always a pleasure. Uh look forward to seeing you sometime soon. And with

that we'll go ahead and sign it off. Cheers. That's what I got. Thanks so much for listening.