We’ve flipped into a parallel universe

Via @TheBTCTherapist

Last month we opened the portfolio review with:

‘We’re somewhere between the “chopsolidation” we spoke of two months ago and a screaming full-on bull run. Any dips have been bought hard and short-lived.’

In the November macro letter, published on the eve of the US election, I wrote “from where I’m sitting, it looks like Trump / Vance by a landslide” - and I regret not sending these to the list, but I did post my last-minute Polymarket bets to Twitter:

The first three were my bets on a Republican landslide: Trump wins, GOP sweeps the House and Senate, and The Donald taking every swing state. 

The last three were super low-percentage hedges: if I was completely wrong and Harris (somehow) won, I was expecting a Fed 50bps sympathy cut from Powell, and Biden to step down right away.

The AP not calling the election bet was in case of total gridlock and uncertainty - any of those three hitting would have more than made up for my top-of-card losses, but as it turned out, it was a landslide and it’s basically all over but the crying (and there is a lot of that). 

Total. Blowout.

Bitcoin and cryptos reacted alongside the betting markets. Polymarket all but called the race fairly early on election night, before CNN, NBC or ABC could bring themselves to face reality. 

Those vertical lines happened at around 10pm ET (the FBI have since raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Caplan, seizing his phone and laptop - he has not been charged with anything yet); while anywhere you looked, the (ostensibly impartial and unbiased) MSM were clinging to hope and plotting out possible pathways to victory for the Dems, reality was telegraphing it loud and clear.

The reason I dwell on betting markets at times like these is because, as you know, our mantra here is that “Incentives are everything”. If our societal institutions are disincentivizing their population from carrying out productive, let alone compliant livelihoods - and the officially approved media refuses to report on or acknowledge how the citizenry’s best interests are being undermined - then those incentives are going to express themselves somewhere.

They cannot be repressed. 

That’s why you’d be better off paying attention to what’s trending on Twitter or in alternative media than watching, much less believing, CNN.

It’s why Joe Rogan is the biggest media channel in the world right now. Much to the chagrin of the left, in fact Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk made a very astute observation about that:

The left is full of chatter about how they need their own, liberal version of Joe Rogan and the like.

But that's the thing: The left used to have a liberal version of Joe Rogan. His name was Joe Rogan. 

He voted for Obama twice and endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016. But because he's openminded, will talk to anyone, and doesn't mindlessly accept the latest propaganda, the left kicked him out. They censored his interview with Robert Malone and pressured Spotify to drop him.

The left can't have their own version of Joe Rogan, because everything that makes Rogan special makes it impossible for him to be on the left.

Boom.

That’s why when I saw Kamala Harris fumble her chance to appear on Rogan’s show, I realized just how tone deaf her entire campaign team was, how they had completely failed to understand how the public’s attention had been driven from the mainstream to the fringes. They were fighting the last war - and they were going to lose, badly.

Much like 2016 - when Trump stunned the world by winning the first time, how?

Because the Democrat campaign viewed the election as a coronation. It was merely a perfunctory formality before Clinton the 2nd ascended the throne. Contrast with Trump, who understood the election as a referendum. 

People felt betrayed by the Wall Street bailouts after the GFC, by the left morphing into neocons (and then later some weird, woke mutation of neocons) and that nobody on the left was listening to them or even talking to them like they had any legitimate grievances.

In fact, the Dems and the left, instead of listening to what the public’s grievances were (namely runaway inflation and illegal immigration), talked down to them, helpfully dictating what they should be caring about, and then belittled them as infantile half-wits for having their own thoughts about that….

Doesn’t look like they’ve figured it out yet (and Ellen Barkin has since protected her tweets)

The next four years look to be all condescension and no introspection on the part of the liberal establishment, the coastal elites, and the MSM - and that means the public will still have to find alternative methods to express their incentives and look after their own rational self-interest.

For the moment, there are a lot of high-fives and victory laps at the seeming defeat of the illiberal left, at least in the US. 

However, I fully expect that at some point, when the gravity of the US debt situation sets in, the Trump admin will, in some manner, pivot or flip flop on their campaign promise on “no CBDCs” and that will be back on the policy track, quite possibly with renewed vigour if it’s propelled by yet another global financial crisis.

Which is why Bitcoin and cryptos are now in up-only mode and will be for some time.

Current Outlook: November 2024

Bitcoin

The catalyst of this latest up move has been the Trump victory in the US, which does a number of things for the space: