Bits + Bips: Bitcoin Brushes Off Another War & Will Powell Relent on Rates? - Ep. 857

Unknown Source June 25, 2025 65 min

artificial-intelligence investment generative-ai startup meta

🎧 Listen to Original

69 Companies

64 Key Quotes

4 Topics

1 Insights

🎯 Summary

Podcast Summary: Bits + Bips: Bitcoin Brushes Off Another War & Will Powell Relent on Rates? - Ep. 857

This episode of Bits + Bips, recorded live before the announcement of the Israel-Iran ceasefire, dives deep into the intersection of escalating geopolitical tensions, their immediate impact on financial markets (especially oil and Bitcoin), and the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path. The discussion features host James Safer alongside Alex Kruger, Noel Atterson, and special guest Anthony Scaramucci.

1. Focus Area

The primary focus areas were:

Geopolitical Risk & Markets: Analyzing the immediate and potential longer-term financial fallout from the recent escalation between Israel and Iran, particularly concerning oil prices and Bitcoin’s role as a macro asset.
Federal Reserve Policy: Debating the market’s expectation for Fed rate cuts versus the Fed’s current “dot plot” projections, and interpreting recent shifts in Fed officials’ rhetoric.
US Stablecoin/ETF Regulation: A planned, though briefly touched upon, discussion regarding the timeline and specifics of potential US stablecoin and Bitcoin ETF approvals.
Domestic Politics: A significant tangent on New York City politics, specifically the potential impact of Eric Adams’ policies versus a hypothetical shift toward more socialist-leaning governance.

2. Key Technical Insights

Market Pricing of Geopolitical Risk: The market’s reaction to the Iran-Israel conflict was characterized as a near-perfect replay of a previous 2024 event, where initial panic gave way to relief after a highly telegraphed, low-damage counterattack by Iran. This suggests markets are pricing in a probabilistic, rather than binary, escalation scenario.
Oil Market Sensitivity to Strait of Hormuz: Trading houses viewed the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz as the critical kinetic event that would send crude oil prices straight to $100, fundamentally changing the inflation and geopolitical landscape.
Trueflation Data: The discussion highlighted the use of real-time data aggregators like Trueflation (using cash register and service data) as a potentially more accurate measure of current inflation than official government statistics, suggesting inflation may be stickier than the Fed anticipates.

3. Market/Investment Angle

Bitcoin as a Macro Hedge: Bitcoin demonstrated its function as a global macro asset, trading actively while other traditional markets were closed during the peak uncertainty of the weekend attacks.
Oil Price Volatility: Oil spiked significantly in anticipation of worst-case scenarios (Strait closure) but rapidly retreated upon confirmation of de-escalation, illustrating how quickly risk premiums are priced and repriced.
Fed Rate Cut Discrepancy: Markets are pricing in significantly more rate cuts (around 50bps this year, more next year) than the Fed’s current dot plot suggests (closer to 25bps or less this year), creating a divergence that traders are betting against the Fed on.

4. Notable Companies/People

Anthony Scaramucci (Baron of Skybridge House): Provided geopolitical context, suggesting the US strikes were partly intended to help Netanyahu domestically and that the overall de-escalation messaging from the US was positive. He also offered strong opinions on NYC politics.
Alex Kruger (Kruger Macro): Analyzed the conflict’s structure as a “perfect replay” of past events, leading to market relief.
Ira Jersey (Bloomberg Fed Rate Strategist): Mentioned as being in the camp predicting two cuts (50bps) this year, contrasting with the Fed’s median projection.
Bitwise/Matt Hogan: Mentioned via sponsorship for their CIO Memo summarizing crypto market movements.

5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion

US Surveillance and Crypto: Scaramucci argued that concerns about secure communication (Signal, WhatsApp) are largely moot in the context of US surveillance capabilities, implying that if the government is tracking terror cells, they have access to most private digital communications.
NYC Governance: A strong critique was leveled against the policies of Mayor Adams and figures like AOC, arguing that while well-intended, they exacerbate economic desperation by failing to foster equal opportunity, leading to business flight and declining city services.

6. Future Implications

The conversation suggests that while the immediate kinetic threat in the Middle East appears to have subsided, the underlying geopolitical shifts (like the non-attendance of key Asian allies at the NATO summit) signal long-term structural changes that markets are currently complacent about. Regarding the Fed, the increasing dovishness among some officials suggests a potential pivot is coming, possibly driven by real-time inflation data suggesting the current policy stance is too restrictive.

7. Target Audience

This episode is most valuable for Crypto and Macro Investment Professionals (traders, analysts, portfolio managers) who need to synthesize geopolitical events with monetary policy expectations to inform their asset allocation decisions.

🏢 Companies Mentioned

Solana ✅ layer 1

Skybridge ✅ investment

The Minotaur ✅ unknown

And China ✅ unknown

When I ✅ unknown

North Atlantic ✅ unknown

Mike Froman ✅ unknown

Hollywood Squares ✅ unknown

As Anthony ✅ unknown

So Alex ✅ unknown

And Trump ✅ unknown

And Trueflation ✅ unknown

Ira Jersey ✅ unknown

The Fed ✅ unknown

Angela Cuomo ✅ unknown

💬 Key Insights

"Austin Campbell will get this great analogy of a podcast that I was listening to, and he basically said it's like money, like you squeeze on one end, the balloon's going to fill up somewhere else, and they're going to figure out a way to like, use that money to bring on more users and pay them back."

Impact Score: 10

"Well, isn't that the big one? Yeah, that's the one for me. So that's the, so if they could pay interest, you're putting them in direct competition with the banks and you're giving the client a 100% match, non-fractional bank."

Impact Score: 10

"One thing that surprised me was something that prohibits any non-financial company from issuing stablecoins. This means Meta is going to have a hard time doing so. Walmart and Amazon were reportedly looking into issuing stablecoins. They're going to have a hard time doing so because the wording was changed at the last minute to prevent a tech company from becoming like a financial company..."

Impact Score: 10

"I'm not super in love with the legislation. If you actually really read the legislation, it's a top-line win, but the lobbyist for the American Banking Association wrote a lot of that legislation. It's going to curb and make it a little bit difficult to get the true blockchain, trustless third-party transfers going that we would all like."

Impact Score: 10

"I would encourage everybody here to look at trueflation.com. And Trueflation is an aggregator that's taking cash register data from retail. It's taking service data. It's taking a whole host of different things... And those inflation numbers are lower than the way the Fed is calibrating the number."

Impact Score: 10

"I think a lot of people get wrong is they view like markets as like a binary outcome, when really it's like discrete. Like there's there's a probabilistic situation here, and that's what everyone's pricing in."

Impact Score: 10

📊 Topics

#artificialintelligence 81 #investment 9 #startup 2 #generativeai 2

🧠 Key Takeaways

💡 ask about is, do you guys think they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz? I mean, I feel like Polymarket odds were at 27% earlier today