SBF Gets Off, Hunter Denied, Fed Hikes
217: Global News and markets update
Happy Friday everybody - hope your week went well. There’s a lot to cover today and to say there is fuckery afoot would be a gross understatement. I had to head into Manhattan for the first time in months today to visit a friend and I was greeted by screaming homeless people, saw a rat get eviscerated by a bus, and watched a woman take a steaming dump in the street all before 7am. The day can only go up from here.
This week we have seen some wild developments — a judge struck down Hunter Biden’s plea deal, Donald Trump has been indicted yet again, the House held a hearing in which 3 veterans testified under oath to the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial beings, and Sam Bankman Fried, the infamous crypto scammer had yet another charge against him dropped.
If you guys missed our deep dives this week you can access them below:
Whistleblowers Claim Alien Life & Craft Recovered - An overview of the recent House committee meeting featuring 3 Military Veterans who testified under oath to the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial life that the US government holds
Wokeness in Modern America - An overview of how woke politics has been detrimental to the US with examples from recent corporations, developments, and trends in the US social scene
Thousands of subscribers have chosen to upgrade to our paid posts for deep dives every week covering crypto, financial markets, geopolitics, and lifestyle commentary. I’ve kept the subscription price low so all have a chance to access — if you’re looking for differentiated takes and commentary that goes deeper than legacy media check it out.
Let’s start with a quick overview of financial markets developments.
Global Markets
Aside from my existing long positions in AMZN, MSFT, PLTR, POWW, ARKK, and a handful of other names like BABA — I am flat at the moment and waiting for the dust to settle on the equities front. I do hold some $200 calls for AAPL 0.00%↑ to play off earnings and hopefully catch some surprise upside but besides that not much is interesting to me at the moment.
The House Financial Services Committee passed a bill protecting right to self-custody for Bitcoin this week
The Bank of Japan has surprised financial markets by adjusting its yield curve control program, according to Bloomberg
Peacock has lost nearly $1.36B this year and the streaming platform has projected they will lose over $3B in 2023
The U.S. Department of Justice announced it has dropped all campaign finance charges against Democrat donor Sam Bankman-Fried who ran the ponzi exchange FTX during the last crypto bull run
Missing crypto millionaire, Fernando Perez Algaba, was found dead and chopped up in suitcase this week
Rich Dad Poor Dad author and investor Robert Kiyosaki says 41 nations will gang up in South Africa to de dollarize the world
Space Force Major Jason Lowery reported on Twitter that he has been ordered by his superiors to take down his book on the national strategic significance of Bitcoin
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate has fallen sharply, down to 101% in July (Spectator Index)
Bitcoin has the power to revolutionize finance, BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, has said according to BI
At least 12 million workers in the US will need to change occupations by the end of 2030 due to automation and AI, per McKinsey.
The United States is experiencing a steep surge in interest payments, now reaching approximately $970 billion. According to financial analyst Joe Consorti, this constitutes an escalation of $41 billion within the second quarter alone (CryptoSlate).
Where does this all go?
One of the reason alternatives to fiat are being explored with crypto and different digital assets is that many believe the amount of debt the US has sustained will inevitably lead to a catastrophic failure of legacy financial systems — similar to the liquidity issues many domestic and regional banks have seen over the last year.
In a striking comparison to the state of affairs four decades ago, on this very day in 1980, the United States national debt was less than $1 trillion. This figure marked the total obligation of the U.S. government; the U.S. is now facing almost $1 trillion of interest expenses alone (CryptoSlate)
Dark stuff.
Crypto
Crypto seems to be chopping a bit burning off some steam from the wide range of positive updates re: ETF submissions and industry catalysts like Chainlink’s CCIP launch. For now I remain long BTC/ETH/LINK/MATIC and a bag of PEPE for shits and giggles.
The next move will be pretty telling and while it’s not rocket science, it looks like we could get a correction to the high 20’s (i.e. $27,000) or a nice bump to the $31,500/$32,000 range soon.
That being said, on chain fundamentals are pretty strong and with the exception of the US Government’s plans to dump some BTC over the next several months, things look positive from a long term holder perspective — there has never been less Bitcoin on exchanges than right now — which is bullish if big buyers enter the market soon or shortly after a dump.
One thing to pay attention to is the eventual elg higher for Bitcoin and then Ethereum. If Bitcoin rallies high enough and drags Ethereum along with it (say over $2,000) and macro conditions don’t worsen materially, you can expect select alts to explode.
Global News
As the War in Ukraine reaches an odd stalemate the US is continuing to support the country indirectly with new weapons packages and aid around $400M — at this point it is getting difficult to keep track of the amount of money we have shipped over.
RFK Jr. seems to be gaining popularity stateside after owning Sean Hannity on a number of issues.
We will put out another political piece in the coming weeks that covers all candidates and issues that will be central to the 2024 election.
New court filings from the U.S. Virgin Islands AG's office allegedly show that JPMorgan Chase not only helped facilitate the sex-trafficking of underage girls by Jeffrey Epstein, but that the bank actively participated in Epstein's sex-trafficking venture from 2006 until 2019.
A naked woman filmed shooting at vehicles in San Francisco during rush hour this week has yet to be charged, officials say
Kim Jong-Un adorned his residence with a plethora of oversized photos of Putin in preparation for defense minister Shoigu who visited the radical country this week
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar said this week that the US should be more fearful of white men because they “cause most of the deaths in America”. FBI crime statistics would like a word mam
Heat waves in three continents have driven the planet's average temperature in July to levels not seen in 120,000 years, scientists say (CNN)
Former NHS Director of End-of-Life Care confirmed this week that doctors lied about COVID being cause of death to help create the illusion of a dire Pandemic
Singapore hung a 45-year-old citizen for drug trafficking this week - it was the city-state’s first execution of a woman in over 20 years
Scientists have discovered the 'most mutated Covid variant ever' lurking in a patient in Indonesia —featuring 113 mutations, more than double the number found in Omicron - Daily Mail
Explosions were reported this morning in the Russian city of Taganrog. Russian sources are reporting that a Ukrainian missile attack has occurred. There are multiple injuries (Faytuks News)
Finland has recorded a record-low birthrate, amid decline over past decade (Spectator Index)
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared unable to speak halfway through a press conference this week as he faltered and paused mid speech before being escorted away from the press (CNN).
Anheuser-Busch announced plans this week to lay off hundreds of US corporate workers after 2023’s Bud Light campaign disaster featuring Trans activist Dylan Mulvaney
Explosions have been reported at oil refinery in Samara, Russia, according to local authorities (Insider Paper)
30,000 troops and 11 countries joined the US and Australia in their largest ever joint-military drills (Indo Pacific News)
France charged four people this week with selling high-tech industrial secrets to China and Russia (Spectator Index)
White House spokesperson Karin Jean Pierre said this morning that President Biden has done more for the US economy and American people than "any other president."
Reports came out this week proving that Facebook censored Tucker Carlson, and removed COVID-19 Vaccine Memes, “Because of Unconstitutional Pressure” from Biden White House. This was something most of us knew already but I guarantee you these revelations are merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the magnitude of censorship from META
Health Incidents
I won’t go down the rabbit hole too deep - as I still think it’s a pretty sensitive subject for many people but I’d be remiss not to mention the trend we have continued to see in the last year of blood clots and athletes/people collapsing that doesn’t seem to have a convincing explanation. People love to say that this always happened pre Pandemic but if you have eyes you understand that the frequency has jumped dramatically.
The media is now going as far as to blame these conditions on everything from global warming to stress from the pandemic. This should raise some red flags, as it is clear they’re posturing.
Really guys? Heat? That’s your explanation for the rise in cases of blood clots? Not buying that for a second.
The internet was shocked this week after reports broke of Lebron James’ son Bronny James collapsed during a practice at USC. Officials have not released any news on the cause of this incident which followed the collapse of American singer-songwriter Tori Kelly (30) who passed out in a restaurant — Blood clots were discovered near her heart. Breakout World Cup star Linda Caicedo (18) grabbed her chest and collapsed at training camp in Sydney this week before being rushed to hospital after losing consciousness.
A clear and observable trend. Is it over exertion? Long Covid? The Vaccines? I will let all of you be the ones to decide but one thing’s for sure — more and more of these incidents are happening and it does seem abnormal to say the least.
WorldCoin
Despite all the hype, Worldcoin has received mixed reactions from the crypto community. Some users pointed out the potential failures due to its centralization, while others say proof-of-personhood is necessary with the increasing presence of AI (Cointelegraph).
Worldcoin consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and, where laws allow, a digital currency (WLD) received simply for being human. We hope that, where the rules are less clear, such as in the U.S., steps will be taken so more people can benefit from both (Worldcoin.com)
If you pay attention Worldcoin has many of the features that are concerns with CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) — namely privacy, access to personal information, and a detailed file on everything about a person.
Worldcoin, Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto project which officially launched on Monday, uses a small device called an “orb” to scan people’s eyeballs in order to generate a unique digital identity. That identity, or World ID, grants its holder “proof of personhood” in the Worldcoin parlance.
The coin’s initial supply is capped at 10 billion tokens, according to the project’s white paper. Monday’s launch consisted of 143 million Worldcoins, of which 100 million were loaned to market makers and the remainder allocated to investors who verified with the project’s Orb technology in the pre-launch phase (Time)
People voluntarily lined up this week to have their eyeballs scanned with a Worldcoin orb in order to get a digital ID. Scary.
The future seems to be getting more and more dystopian by the day.
We’ll be back next week with deep dives on Tuesday and Thursday.
Have a great weekend.
SBF Gets Off. Classic