Silver’s squeeze could break an overleveraged European bank, and push capital toward Bitcoin as the fastest escape in a banking crisis.
In this episode, Scott argues that silver’s parabolic move reflects a structural repricing driven by physical tightness colliding with an enormous derivatives complex that no longer has reliable access to borrowable metal. Industrial demand (solar, electronics, batteries) is described as price-insensitive because silver is mission-critical and only a small input cost per end product, leading buyers to hoard supply and chase direct-offtake from mines while lease rates spike. The conversation frames the rally as potentially geopolitical and financial warfare, especially between the U.S. and China, with Europe positioned as collateral damage, and speculates that a major European bank could be dangerously short, making this squeeze a coordinated attack on Europe’s banking system. From there, the discussion widens to bond-market fragility (Japan’s yield curve, unrealized losses, counterparty trust), the possibility of bail-ins versus bailouts, and why Bitcoin is seen as the ultimate “off-ramp” during banking stress even if it wobbles during liquidity crunches.
“So we have sort of the big long playing out in the silver market.”
“We have no visibility into just how much silver is shorted.”
“We’ve gone from essentially high 20s to 95 and not a single body has floated to the surface just yet.”
“It feels like something tectonic is happening below the surface.”
“Whoever’s short silver is pretty much dead.”
“I think you’re seeing a structural repricing.”
“You can’t print more silver.”
“The ultimate bank run now exists and it never did before.”
The episode’s core thesis is that silver is exposing a collision between real-world scarcity and a sprawling paper apparatus, and that the eventual unwind may reveal a major counterparty failure, potentially in Europe, at a moment when bond markets and geopolitics are already strained. If physical delivery stress escalates, the knock-on effects could extend beyond metals into broader derivatives and sovereign-debt confidence, forcing policymakers into either overt money-printing or more coercive measures like bail-ins. In that environment, the guest argues Bitcoin’s value proposition sharpens not as a narrative trade but as operational escape velocity: a liquid, portable exit from fragile counterparties when trust breaks and traditional “safe havens” become harder to access in size.
0:00 - Intro
0:34 - Silver squeeze
3:29 - Drivers
7:08 - Davos & Carney
13:13 - Demand for solid metal
17:22 - How high and how much?
21:08 - CrowdHealth & Bitkey
22:58 - Is it the big one?
27:52 - Minnesota and fraud
31:13 - Fiscal dominance
37:47 - SLNT & Unchained
39:19 - Outlook for bitcoin
44:56 - Warning signs
51:11 - Normalcy bias
58:07 - Late stage fiat, hiring age
1:02:29 - Buybacks
(00:00) So we have sort of the big long playing out in the silver market. We have no visibility into just how much silver is shorted. Seen rumors out there of 5 billion ounces. We've gone from high 20s to 95 and not a single body has floated to the surface just yet. Question is, is China squeezing the US or is the US squeezing China? And then who gets caught in the crossfire? I don't remember in my lifetime seeing patterns quite like this one.
(00:22) It feels like something tectonic is happening below the surface and that means that whoever's short silver is pretty much dead. Scott, um, welcome back to the show. Uh, I reached out to you last week as silver prices were going continue to go parabolic. Um, continuing the run that they had in 2025 as it stands right now as we're recording on Tuesday afternoon, January 20th.
(00:57) Silver sitting at $9446, which is pretty astonishing if if you ask me, especially considering where the price was last year. What is the silver market telling us right now? >> Thanks for having me, Marty. It's good to be here, man. It's good to uh catch up. So, let's talk about silver. Um yeah, so we have um sort of the big long playing out in in the silver market.
(01:22) um you have a underlying asset which is not freely available to be borrowed and loaned anymore as the supply has become extremely tight. Uh you have industrial uh industrial uses that are outpacing our mining supply. So we're in a structural deficit and um large companies that need silver are hoarding it.
(01:47) So you you you have this crazy scenario with a tremendous derivatives complex built on top of a metal that is not freely available to be borrowed, shorted, and loaned. And that leads to a tremendous squeeze in the underlying complex. And I think that's what we're witnessing. Um the question is where does it go? Uh you know it's silver's so interesting because the industrial uses are so great.
(02:13) So whether we're talking about solar or we're talking about electronics or we're talking about batteries, but the amount of silver that goes into any one particular product isn't that great. So that means the industrial buyers are really price insensitive because they need the metal. So we we have this crazy um scenario built up where the derivatives traders have made huge bets on the price of silver.
(02:39) Uh we know that the the listed markets are are gigantic. Um but the over-the-counter markets are where all the action is and we have no visibility into just how much silver is shorted uh over the counter but you know seen rumors out there of 5 billion ounces. Um could it be true? Maybe.
(03:00) I would not be surprised right the arrogance and the hubris of derivative traders can be their unwinding and and their undoing. So, we'll see where this goes. But at some point, you know what what's what's so interesting to me is we've gone from essentially, let's say, high 20s to 95 and not a single body has floated to the surface just yet.
(03:22) But we know at some point the body will float to the surface. We're going to find out where the damages and that's where things are going to get crazy. >> I think that's the big question on on everybody's mind. And I guess to dive into a few of the things you mentioned there. Um firstly, how from your perspective, how much of this price squeeze is being driven by just industrial demand as the price goes up? The uh the companies implementing silver into their products at an industrial scale realize, hey, we need to get more.
(03:57) If the price keeps running, it's going to be more expensive. How much of it is driven by that? much is driven by a a flight to precious metals because of geopolitical and uh fiscal uncertainty rising around the world. And then how much would you contribute to derivatives traders getting getting caught off sides and and just letting the price actually find true discovery because uh those trades are being unwhelmed? >> Wow, that's a great question.
(04:29) uh let's say you know there's a fourth one in there which and it goes into the geopolitical risk but I think that there's a hot war developing the hot war not you know kinetic war not being with missiles and bombs but being with economics so the question is is China squeezing the US or is the US squeezing China um and then who gets caught in the crossfire certainly Europe would seem likely as a as a potential victim of of the fight.
(05:04) But I I suspect that China's move to cut exports of of silver um was a shot over the bow of of the US. The US will react potentially taking countries like Venezuela that have large silver supplies um and supply China with ore. Um, we're in un un I'm almost speechless to to try to describe how dangerous this moment is in time.
(05:39) Um, but we're going to have to kind of work our way through. The derivative guys are the going to be the bodies, right? They're going to be the guys that get just absolutely demolished. Um, and you know, I'm curious with everything that's going on with, excuse me, with Greenland. um what does that have to do with silver? And I think there's more there than probably meets the eye.
(06:03) Um I think that the US is in in one way or another, you know, happy to see strife between uh the European continent and um and the US. They'd like to undo the leadership in in in in Europe, which is controlled by central banking. remember the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, they're all essentially one entity um through the Bank of International Settlements.
(06:32) A and Europe is so heavily controlled by the ECB. It's hard for me to to divorce what's going on in silver from what's going on in um central banking. And I think the Trump administration would like to to really put the Fed behind the APAL and and in doing so they really have to go after the city of London and the ECB and and all of those entities.
(06:57) All of this stuff has to be tied together, right? Putting the puzzle together seems extremely difficult at this moment, but for me, um I think they're all tied together. >> Yeah. to your point about Greenland and Europe being in the crosshairs and probably going to be the sort of benefactor for lack of a better term or the benefactor of the bad economic implications of whatever's happening right now.
(07:28) I'm sure you've seen clips coming out of Davos, the World Economic Forums going on right now. And I tweeted uh less than an hour ago. There's Mark Harney was giving a speech and to me he's the epitome of globalist Davis rot with what he did at HSBC, the Bank of England. Now as the prime minister of Canada, I think he's one of the sort of globalist generals that has been trotted around and um he's been stationed at different parts of the world to to achieve certain things.
(07:58) and he was on stage today basically squirming and um trying to get a point across that what Donald Trump and the United States are doing from an economic and geopolitical policy perspective is is unsustainable. And the fact that he was scared, squirming, and um lashing out as aggressively as he was on stage there was a signal to me like, oh, they do feel the pressure.
(08:23) And I guess something that the Trump administration is doing is is making them squirm, which if you ask me, uh, is a good thing cuz I don't think we can continue down the path of the rules-based international order really controlled by the central banks that you mentioned earlier. >> Yeah, agreed. And to that to that point, you had Bent come out just recently, just today, and say, you know, Europe has no no no ammo in their their gun.
(08:51) Um, and and they present no risk uh on an economic front. So, yeah. Wow. They just, you know, we could talk about Japan, we could talk about Europe. It would seem to me that, and and here's my best guess. My best guess is that it's a large European bank that's offsides in silver in a major way.
(09:16) Let's let's just take UBS as my prime prime suspect. And this move in silver is coordinated to go after um the European banking system. That would be my best guess as to what we're seeing. I imagine JP Morgan got themselves in a good position. Uh, who knows about Bank America and Croup? Uh, I would assume that they're okay, but that's a major assumption.
(09:45) Um but again it comes back to the fundamentals of a market like silver requires and you know I keep repeating this because it does transition into a Bitcoin story but a market like like silver requires that you you can you can borrow loan and short the underlying asset. And we're seeing lease rates in silver explode, which means you can't borrow it.
(10:14) It's getting really, really tight. And that means that whoever's short silver is is pretty much dead, right? They're they're in they're there's no way out of this conundrum. Wouldn't it be amazing to watch a European bank go down and and UBS, they're already sitting on their GameStop problem through their Credit Swiss acquisition.
(10:42) Um, really possibly silver could be the the nail in the coffin over there. And and you know that brings us to the next question which is if it is UBS how how does UBS get backstopped by Switzerland? I mean there's only so many PC Philippes and chocolates and wood shoes that they can sell to backs stop UBS, right? So who backs stops UBS? I don't know.
(11:12) I mean, it's could, you know, I don't know how that would play out, but you got to believe that all of these things that are happening are sort of interconnected and tied together. >> Yeah. And I was doing research on the Credit Swiss uh acquisition to refresh my memory because that happened in 2023. Uh they basically acquired them in a fire sale for $3.25 billion.
(11:37) But to your you mentioned the the GameStop, I think just to re-educate people about what UBS actually acquired, Credit Swiss had some terribly offside uh bond exposure, I believe, when when they were acquired by UBS. And that was a big question after they were acquired, like how much can they can they paper over and band-aid over that that um terrible toxic debt problem that they they acquired from Credit Swiss.
(12:05) And I, if I recall correctly, uh, almost three years ago when it was going on, people said, "This is just a ticking time bomb. It's going to sit on this balance sheet for a few years." >> Yeah. And and to add to their bond wos, there was the GameStop story. Uh, AR Archagos was was out of was primed at Credit Swiss. So we we again we just you know all of this paper stuff is so fake and yet silver is is so real right like silver is a real asset and you can measure it you know people can demand delivery of it it it's so much different than paper
(12:45) problems that can be you know covered up or papered over as you said um you cannot paper over physical silver now you can paper over the losses. You can print money and and fill in those holes. You know, the monopoly board, the monopoly banker never goes under. He just prints more paper. But you can't print more silver.
(13:09) And that's where things can get really crazy. Well, I think they especially get crazy when people start demanding the physical. And so can you speak to the sort of development of that trend which I think we're seeing what would be a classical vault run on the physical as people begin to question. >> Right.
(13:33) So if you're Samsung, if you're Samsung or you're >> um you know a large solar company or you're Tesla or your Nvidia, you need silver, right? They you you without silver, you stop your production lines. So they're going to go out and they're going to get the silver. if they become afraid that they can't get it at the Comx as they are becoming.
(14:01) We know that Tesla's been, you know, traveling around Peru talking to silver mines trying to buy silver directly from the mines. Um that that story's been out there for quite a while. So the problem in in the silver market is that these large industrial users, consumers are going to go out and they're going to acquire the silver by whatever means necessary and they're not going to be price sensitive.
(14:26) They need the silver. At the same time, the producers, the mines, the smelters, uh the refiners, they're in a different position because if they've used the futures markets to hedge their positions, well, what happens if you you you you're a let's just give an example. You're a silver uh refiner and you buy $50 million worth of silver.
(14:54) you go out, it's going to take you a month to to to produce the actual silver from from the ore. So, you go out and you hedge and now your hedge goes up 50% and you get margin called on your hedge. So, now you're forced into a position where you almost have to take your hedge off because you don't have the capital to protect your hedge.
(15:18) So the people using the paper markets appropriately, the consumers and the producers, they can get squeezed tremendously. The producers can get squeezed because they get margin called on their short positions. the consumers can get squeezed because they're they run in fear that the Comx is not going to be able to give them the metal and they're going to get a force majour scenario where they get cash back instead of the metal because the metal is not available.
(15:47) So you have both sides of the equation are in a really really tough spot and it if you're a producer you probably don't want to be hedged right now, right? Because who knows whether you have the capital to withstand silver running to 200 or 300. You you might get margin called out and be bankrupted. Same thing happens to the miners, right? What if the miners are hedged? So So the story here is goes beyond just the the end uses.
(16:20) It's the entire supply chain that can run into trouble by a price dislocating and going crazy because remember when they sell forward contracts they have to produce margin. >> Yeah. The forward contracts for anybody listening somebody will basically give them cash up front for delivery of physical at some point in the future. >> Yeah.
(16:46) In many cases, they'll go into the COMX, right? The COMX has been the sort of hub of silver, the LBMA, and they'll sell futures contracts. Well, as the COMX continues to raise margin requirements, and the price goes higher, well, they have to continue to put up capital to cover their short position. At some point, they just don't have the money and no bank's going to make them a loan to cover their margin requirements when volatility is like it is, right? So now you you end up in a real tough spot if you're just a a silver miner who's been hedging, you know, appropriately
(17:19) trying to do the best by your shareholders. >> Yeah, it's insane. I And I think that gets to the big question on everybody's mind is how high can this run? I've seen some people commenting on the silver chart and looking like, hey, this is a blowoff top. It's going to end soon. I've seen people respond to that.
(17:34) You're you're looking at it at the wrong scale. Put it on log. What do you think could happen here? Do do you think this could be >> a blowoff top where where we're we're going to correct dramatically and we'll go back to >> what silver was before? Well, something similar to whatever it was 2011, 2012 or is this time different? No, >> I think it's different.
(17:56) I think you're seeing a structural repricing. So, imagine you're sitting on land in Texas at $500 an acre and then all of a sudden somebody figures out there's oil under that land, right? and the next day that land becomes worth $10,000 an acre, right? And you see a structural repricing in in the price of that land. I think that's what we're seeing in the silver market.
(18:20) >> And so how what >> what does a structural repricing look like? >> Well, we don't know. Again, a lot of this depends on what happens in the derivatives complex. Do we get to a force majour? How tight is the supply? Do governments begin to hoard? Um in the in the recent um military bill that was just passed, $2 and a half billion dollars was allocated for purchasing strategically important metals uh resources.
(18:52) Uh silver was on the top of that list. So if the US government starts hoarding silver and the Chinese government's hoarding silver, we're talking, you know, these are the number becomes sort of irrelevant at the point when you have a printing press and you're trying to buy the metal. So how high could we go? We could go really really high.
(19:14) Much higher than anybody expects. >> Yeah. And that um and I mean this ties into I mean to your point like I can only imagine what's happening behind the scenes right now of people >> trying to plug holes uh in balance sheets and um basically bail out behind the scene without announcing it. We just went over $95 again.
(19:39) Um, but then you then something we alluded to earlier, but then you have other things going on in the market like the Japanese yield curve blowing out at the same time as all of this is going on. And it makes you wonder is like how much can they actually uh how much can they help this situation? Can they actually plug the holes if all this is happening at once? And if you're an institutional fund uh with exposure to all these different markets, like how much is too much all at once? >> Yeah.
(20:10) And the question is how big are the unrealized losses, right? At some point they're going to come to the surface. We're going to find out who's in trouble. And I suspect we're going to find out fairly soon. Uh blowing out yield curves and seeing, you know, long bonds take off. Well, somebody owns those bonds and they're sitting on substantial losses.
(20:32) Now, in the case of Japan, it's probably less of a problem because they own 50% of their bond market. Uh but in the case of the US, it becomes a real problem as capital gets repatriated uh from uh Japanese investors start bringing their money back and buying those bonds. Uh that's the real risk here. The risk is to un our bond market.
(20:52) At the same time now, the Europeans uh they they plan on going to war with the United States, which you know, you're watching pictures of troops landing in Greenland. Um Dane the Danes threatening to sell their government bonds and it it's just chaos, right? It's it's it feels like operation chaos. Suffra's healthcare open enrollment has started.
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(23:10) And that's what I'm just trying to check my priors. With this specifically with the silver gold running um with the Japanese uh yield curve blowout and um everything else, it's like, okay, it seems like this is the big one. Uh but throughout my history, the last 15 years, the government has always been able to step in and paper over this.
(23:33) But when you factor in the geopolitical incohesion that exists particularly between the United States and Europe, which um if the blow up if the the problems are as big as we think they are behind the scenes, there would need to be some um some coordination and sympatico between Europe and the United States specifically.
(23:58) It just that just seems like we may be too far away from each other right now to to successfully be able to coordinate a bailout of something of this magnitude. And who knows, maybe the US isn't as exposed to it as European banks. Maybe we're better positioned and we could view this market uh turmoil as an opportunity to to weaken Europe even further.
(24:20) >> I think that's the correct take, right? And look, you know, as guys who have studied markets for forever, feels like forever. Um, we become experts in pattern recognition. So, we're trying to look at these patterns and we're trying to look for previous patterns that look like this and and you know, things that we can learn from history.
(24:44) Um, but I don't remember in my lifetime seeing patterns quite like this one, right? So, it feels like something tectonic is happening below the surface and we just don't know because we're not privy to those discussions. Uh, but it does, you know, I I don't think we can ignore the Ukraine war.
(25:05) I think that's playing a major role in what's going on here. I think Trump wants that over and Europe wants nothing more than to continue fighting for whatever reason and we don't understand that. uh you've got the sort of crazy immigration story um in Europe and and here in the United States that seems to be bubbling over like we haven't even discussed what's going on in in Minnesota.
(25:28) Um that's tremendously destabilizing. So man at every level right now there's so many things happening that it's hard to follow the ball. You know it it I'm looking at Bitcoin's price. I find that interesting because I think that Bitcoin's the true measure of of global liquidity and I think liquidity is stressed right now.
(25:51) So at some point somebody's going to break and we'll see where where that breaks. My guess is Europe. >> Yeah. Yeah. It is um it is watching Bitcoin fell below 90K and then and then you bring it home domestically. You look at Trump verse Pal and the sort of saber rattling that exists between those two with President Trump adamant about getting rates down as quickly as possible.
(26:18) And then you had the this is another thing never had this in terms of a pattern emerge throughout one of these crises where you have Jerome Pal on a Sunday night release a a video that looks like a hostage video. hostage video for sure. >> Pining on the uh the uh inappropriateness of the politicization of the Federal Reserve and reassuring the markets that independence is is key for the Fed and that the the Federal government should stop playing political games by um filing a lawsuit against them for their their work on the uh Federal Reserve.
(26:53) >> Yeah. Meanwhile, the the the Fed, who cut interest rates uh what a month before the election in September, uh 50 basis points, you know, unsuspected to try to uh to try to help Camala Harris is now pleading, hey, we're not political. They're the most political body on earth. Um and again, it's not just the Fed, right? It's the Fed, it's the ECB, it's the Bank of Japan, it's all of these entities, and we have to look at them as one.
(27:22) And that's why what's happening in Japan and what's happening in Europe is all about what's happening at the Fed and what's happening at the Bank of International Settlements. They must be in an outright panic right now. Um, you know, I just don't, again, as guys who who rely on pattern recognition when we go outside of the patterns, we don't really know what to do.
(27:42) We just kind of look back and go, "Wow, this is interesting." And try to try to draw conclusions. But sometimes the best thing to do is say, "I don't know." Right? That's how you keep yourself out of trouble. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I I'm a big believer in that admitting when you don't know, especially when you know you don't know. And I think that's the case here.
(28:00) I don't know exactly what's going on, but I will say um I mean you brought up Minnesota and it feel like there it feels like there is a degree of stress in the air particularly in the financial sector and people in the finance sector looking at gold and silver run and now the Japanese um government bond yield blowing out and uh I don't think anybody's um running around with their hair on fire quite yet but like we've been alluding to behind the scenes are probably very stressed out and it seems like the markets are calling [ __ ] on
(28:32) the scam of the fiats and the sovereign debt uh system as it exists today and I think a lot of people get worried like we can't have the financial system meltdown we need everything to be bailed out government central banks need to step in but then you look at something like the Minnesota fraud the fraud that was unearthed in California and now there's just been a bunch of copycats following Nick Shirley's steps and unearthing fraud that exists across the country, not only Minnesota, but in states across the
(29:02) country. And I think it's I'm pretty confident saying that the the fraud um that was unearthed in in Minnesota, we can just assume that exist in every single state to some degree. And when you aggregate the uh amount of money that is simply being pilered away from US taxpayers and printed in debt and pointed towards overt fraud, the whole system is completely fraudulent.
(29:29) And the point I bring this up, reason I bring this up is because like, okay, we're calling [ __ ] and there's going to be some financial turmoil. It's probably a good thing at the end of the day. Let's just get all this fraud, waste, and abuse out of the way, reset the system, and get back to a sound money standard where the governments and central banks don't have the ability to piler taxpayer money and debt taken out in the name of taxpayers to simply hand it to people who are are just essentially just stealing it for their own good. whether
(30:01) they're buying new cars in new homes or taking that cash and sending it to a a foreign country to fund terrorism. >> Yeah. Worse worse yet, right? And Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan. I don't know if you caught it, but he said 50% of the government budget is fraud. 50%. That's what $7 trillion. That's three and a half trillion >> in fraud.
(30:22) >> Yeah. >> Um >> you know, and then you have other talking heads coming up and saying, "Well, we got to get back to a little bit of fraud." And and I think a little bit of fraud is like telling a drug addict to smoke a little bit of crack, right? It it doesn't work. We are a nation of laws, right? That's been what made America so investable.
(30:42) And the fraud story is an investment story in the end. Are you going to invest in a company that 20 has 20% of their their budget is fraud? No, of course not. So why are you going to invest in a country where 50% of their budget is fraud? And let's just take Elon at at his word. I think he knows because he was in there with Doge.
(31:04) I think he he he got a look under the hood and said, "Oh my goodness, what in the world is going on here? I really do think that, you know, it's crazy." >> And the whole meme of fiscal dominance that's really taken hold of the markets and become >> become basically just like a wrote uh a wrote description of the environment we're living in.
(31:27) It's like, oh, we're shifting from monetary policy dominance to fiscal dominance. And that that meme's been growing for like the last 2 years. Um, it makes sense like we we the government is issuing all this debt to basically figure out what they're doing with their yield curve. And it's like, okay, we're living in a system of fiscal dominance uh as dictated by the Treasury and the federal government spending our money.
(31:53) And to your point, we're finding out that 50% almost almost $4 trillion of that fiscal dominance is overt fraud. And I would not be surprised if that 50% estimation by Elon is even low. Like it's probably much higher, especially when you factor in the military budget. And to think that there's not waste, fraud, and abuse happening within the black box of the military budget, which hasn't passed an audit in over a decade.
(32:20) uh would be extremely naive. And so we literally literally live in a fraudulent system here in the United States. The rule of law um is not being respected. Uh it's pure anarch tyranny. And that's the thing I think getting the message out to the American people and helping them realize while I do think Trump and his administration are doing a lot of good things.
(32:43) I think it's important to highlight that this fraud, waste, and abuse is bipartisan. It's happening across both sides of the aisle. We're in the loot the treasury stage of late stage empire. >> Yeah. And I I think that's right. Elon made that point that this is impossible to clean up because it's both sides. Um look to when you talk about late late stage, you know, I I've been in the crackup boom uh category for quite some time now and I think what we are witnessing is the early to middle stages of a crackup boom. Um, at which point,
(33:17) look, there's two ways to get to a depression. You get there through a deflationary spiral. That's what everyone kind of thinks of when they think of a depression. But you also get there through an inflationary, hyperinflationary environment. And that's the risk here, right? The risk here is that we can't allow our interest rates to go to a point that they make sense because that would kill the economy and and the deficit would get worse and the printing would get worse.
(33:42) So, we're really stuck. you know, we're in a box. Um, the government's going to have to step in and do some form of yield curve control or our rates will go to, you know, north of 10%. What what what at what rate would you loan the US government money for 30 years, right? I I mean, for me, that number would be north of 20%.
(34:06) >> Easily, >> given Yeah. And so so given that that number is is looking at 5% right now and and we know above 5% you're going to have real problems especially in the 10ear um with h with housing with the auto loans the entire economy would come grinding to a halt. So we're stuck and the only the only way out is to print more money.
(34:29) Right? Larry Leard's got it 100% right. The big print is coming. It's coming in the form of yield curve control. Um but it all leads to a crackup boom. I mean eventually the dollar becomes worthless. >> How quickly do we do we get to the government intervention? Do the bodies need to um show themselves and float to the surface? >> Yeah, I think so.
(34:52) But I think that's happening in 2026, right? I I I I don't think we're making it, you know, much longer. And and look, I think when we step back and look at everything that's happening here, we can't discount that this is about the midterms. This is about defanging Donald Trump and dethroning him. And I think, look, 2026 has the potential to get absolutely wild.
(35:23) I think the powers that be, the Federal Reserve >> potential, it's been a hot start. Yeah, we're we're off to a great start. But the powers that be at in the monetary kind of universe, they would like nothing more than to crash the economy and see Donald Trump removed in shame. And that's that's a real scary pro uh proposition when you have the Federal Reserve, you know, the the the European banks, the whole world trying the whole financial world wanting to crash the system simply to remove an American president uh and to defang him. uh that
(35:54) has a lot of potential to go uh sideways quickly. >> Yeah, I mean that it's having had uh multiple conversations um with geopolitical and macro analysts over the last couple months, particularly leading up to the end of 2025, beginning of this year, a lot of what do we have to look forward to or what are you expecting to happen in 2026? And I was uh I don't want to say dismayed, but it was a bit shocked to hear multiple people respond almost immediately civil war and like number one on the list headed into 2026.
(36:34) And two, your point about the year starting hot. I mean, you look at what's happening in Minnesota, you see all these ICE protests, and then obviously the saber rattling um from a geopolitical perspective with what we did in Venezuela, what's happening around Greenland right now and the sort of um battle of words that's playing out in Davos right now.
(36:57) It seems like the the rhetoric is getting hotter and hotter by the day. And to your point, uh, any sort of conflict being forced on on the public, um, to to push the economy or the political will of the country one in one direction or another seems very obvious at this point. >> Yeah, it does. And I would argue what we're seeing in Minnesota is a civil war.
(37:23) It's just only one side's fighting right now. And if the other side starts to fight, that presents a real problem, you know, and that's not good for any of us. The civil war was is is the worst possible outcome. So, you know, I'm I'm hopeful that somehow they step in, but I again, when you look at the sort of the landscape that we're in right now, um it's hard to be optimistic.
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(39:17) That's unchained.com/tc. >> And so what what do you think happens for Bitcoin from here? Like I said, we're flo below $90,000 right now. You believe it's this barometer of global liquidity, which seems obviously stressed at the moment. Um will Bitcoin u basically signal to us will be a leading indicator for okay, they're about to turn the money printer on or conversely the the liquidity crisis is about to be laid bare.
(39:46) >> Yeah. Look, the Bitcoin story is a story of self-banking. So, a banking crisis will be a boon to Bitcoin. Um, that's clear to me. In any type of financial stress, Bitcoin is the off-ramp from their financial rails. And, you know, it's interesting. We we sort of default to this position of a bailout.
(40:10) And the one thing no one's talking about is a bailin. So, I'm going to be a contrarian here and say, I've got my eyes on the potential for bailins. Um, imagine that scenario where you wake up on a Monday morning and everything you have in the bank over a certain number, let's just say $100,000 is seized.
(40:33) Uh, that's, you know, I I I know that's sort of a a low probability take. Uh, but I'm not sure that there's the ability to take to conduct another bailout without inflating away everything. So, it's interesting to me that nobody is discussing the potential for a bailin. And yeah, I've got my eyes keenly focused on the potential. But look, either way, in any type of banking crisis, Bitcoin's the only offramp.
(41:02) You're not going to be able to take delivery of gold or silver. So, what are you going to buy to get out of their system as their system runs into trouble? You're going to buy Bitcoin. You're going to buy Bitcoin. You're going to yank it off the exchange in under an hour. That's your offramp. And and the largest institutions in the world already have the money sitting in the Cayman's outside the US where they could ship it over to to Dubai or Singapore and and get into Bitcoin in size, right? Like where else are what
(41:33) if you have a billion dollars? Where in the world are you going to put it? In 0809, this didn't exist. You and I have discussed this previously, right? Bitcoin is this crazy off-ramp that enables you to get outside of their financial rails. Yeah. And it seems like with the the price action in recent months, obviously 2025 and now into this year, obviously we had a little pump to start the year, but we're we're falling back towards where we ended um where we ended the year, but it does seem like there's almost a a lulling complacency entering
(42:08) the Bitcoin market where people are con or becoming more convinced like ah gold and silver were the horses we should have been on. Um and and Bitcoin doesn't seem like it's stepping up to the plate in terms of acting as this neutral reserve asset for the digital age that that people fall back to when things get chaotic.
(42:30) And I would posit to those people just zoom out 3 years, look at where Bitcoin was. It did an 8x um between November 22 and October of last year. And maybe it's cooling off a bit, but to your point, like where are you going to go? Are you going to buy, especially if you're a large institution, buy billions of dollars of gold, have it physically delivered and sit in a vault, which in recent years, uh, gold sitting in vaults has been susceptible to confiscations, particularly um, Venezuela and and Russia, I believe. Uh, and that's what I
(43:03) worry for, um, particularly Bitcoin retail investors is they get lulled into the state of complacency where they convince themselves that uh, the Bitcoin story is over. Um, and then at some point you have something like a bailin, which I'd be interested to get your thoughts on how they would justify a bailin.
(43:21) But I think that would be a massively um triggering event for for flows into Bitcoin as well. >> Yeah, of course. Right. Um, but either either way, right, bail in, bail out, you get to the same place. Uh, arguably the bailin is tremendously deflationary. The bailout is tremendously inflationary. Like I said earlier, they both end both both both scenarios go to, you know, both roads go to the same place in the end.
(43:47) So, you know, the question is would with 90% of our populace really kind of struggling right now to make ends meet is, you know, is is a bailout and and massive money printing and another huge round of inflation, is it even tolerable? Add to that we have the AI story on top of everything. You know, like we're going down a rough road, man.
(44:11) It just seems like a really, really rough road. Um the bailin, remember bailin was done in Cyprus. Uh the trial run has been completed. Uh they know what they know how to do it. They know how it works. We kind of go down the great taking route with David Rogers Web. Um that's really interesting.
(44:32) Um, but at some point here, look, they're going to have to recapitalize the system. Um, let's see where it goes. You know, I again, I would I would bet my I'd bet everything on yield curve control if it wasn't for the midterms and the fact that the central banks so badly want to destroy Donald Trump. So, I think we can go into a really, really dark place here, um, you know, leading up into the midterms.
(44:57) How do you defend against the uh central banks and the globalists trying to do this? Is it a public messaging thing? Is there mechanical stuff you can do from a market structure basis to to defend against this? Uh how do we how do we how would you make it clear to to people that hey, this is an attempted take out of Donald Trump because these people don't like him because they don't like that he's not on board with the globalist agenda.
(45:27) Yeah, I think the only way to defend against it is not to have debt. Um, debt's what's going to be the the undoing of so many le, you know, leverage always kills you uh when you have a deleveraging and it certainly would seem that we have a massive deleveraging coming our way. Now, in the case of, you know, an asset like silver, just to go back there again, the deleveraging can be to the upside.
(45:51) If all the leverage is on the short side, uh you better be careful because things can get crazy. Um in Bitcoin, it probably sees, you know, we go lower until there's a financial crisis. At the the first sniff of a financial crisis, Bitcoin rips. Yeah. Yeah. It is crazy times. What um what else are you looking out for um in terms of uh things that would signal that we're getting closer to this deleveraging event where the body is rising to the the surface of the water? Look, I think we're we're really really close. Um again, I'm expecting at some
(46:32) point here soon somebody to float up to the top and if not, they're going to push these prices. you they're going to push yields higher. They're going to push gold and silver higher until they get there, right? Somebody's going to float up to the surface. And and it seems to me that this is what the Trump administration wants.
(46:52) So, you know, the US has the world's largest printing press. They'll get to where they want to get to. Don't bet against the Treasury. And one thing that's been interesting too, I'm not sure if you've been following this, but the delay of the Supreme Court's ruling on the tariffs, and it feels like every time they push that back another week, the >> probability of them um giving the the green light to the tariff regime um goes up significantly.
(47:18) And I think that would be massively beneficial for for Trump's economic policy. >> Yeah, >> that's another thing that could be destabilizing if they have to unwind those as well. You're talking hundreds of billions of dollars that we need to figure out what to do with how to give it back. >> Just it's crazy times. I I I you know, again, wherever you look, there's another grenade sitting underneath a uh you know, some leaves and and you just got to be careful.
(47:46) It's like landmines are everywhere. And I've never in in my career, I've never seen a setup like this. I just I'm I've never been more defensive in my opinions than I am right now cuz I honestly I just I don't know. You know, I try to go revert back to first principles and first principles tell me that the derivatives complexes that again it's not just silver.
(48:09) We could talk about treasuries, right? If if silver breaks, what happens to treasury derivatives? If they break, the whole thing breaks, right? If you think the silver market's big, you should see what's going on in, you know, the basis trade out of the Caymans, which is trillions of dollars, right? We have we have estimated a quadrillion dollars in derivative exposure.
(48:34) These are not numbers that we can even quantify. We can't even understand them. And the entire system is held together by counterparty, right? Counterparties that trust each other. And if we see one large counterparty fail, the entire system crumbles. >> Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned earlier like the Danes saying they're going to dump all their US treasuries.
(48:57) Granted, they only have $100 million of US treasuries on their balance sheet. they've been dumping >> for years. But that I mean that obviously it's not going to have a material >> impact on the structural integrity of the treasury treasury market as it stands today. But um it is just sort of a market signal like hey they could be the first to say that.
(49:21) Who knows? Maybe some bigger country out of Europe with a with a larger exposure says hey we're going to follow the Danes maybe get China Japan saying something similar Japan would be we need to defend our own yield curve. So we sort of need to dump these. >> That's the big one, right? It's Japan. Uh the Chinese we know they they'd love nothing more than to see the dollar collapse.
(49:42) The Japanese are really caught in a box themselves, right? They're going to have to at some point here step in and defend their yield curve. They have to defend their bond market. I just can't like we know that these losses are in the system whether it's pension funds, whether it's, you know, banks, Japanese banks there, my guess is that there's structural insolvenies around the world right now and we just haven't we no one's raised their hand yet, but it's going to happen.
(50:10) Yeah, I mean as it pertains to Japan specifically, just looking at the charts like left side of the bell curve, caveman uh chart analysis, it's like it feels like something has to happen soon. Uh cuz they're going parabolic straight up and and to the right. >> Last night was a six sigma event, right? Every time there's a six sigma event, we learn about the bodies really soon after.
(50:36) So, my guess is we're about to find out about who lost a metric [ __ ] ton of money and we'll see where it goes from there. But that's that's going to be the spark on on the Bitcoin story when you when you have de facto bank runs. The ultimate bank run now exists and it never did before, right? There was nowhere to hide.
(50:58) You could pull your money out of one bank, but you had to put it in another bank. Well, now there's a there's a there's a place you can go where you don't put your money in any bank, right? And that will cause a global bank run the likes of which we've never seen before. >> Yeah. Well, I know you're having um this conversation with uh many individuals on a weekly basis in the Bitcoin today spaces.
(51:21) What is the most common retort you get when you put this thesis out there? Look, I think there's just so much normaly bias that's been built up over the last 20 years uh that people just can't see the obvious, right? You get away from first principles when you believe in normaly. Um so, you know, things are fine today, they'll be fine tomorrow.
(51:43) Uh but as people that have been around markets for decades, we know that's not true. And then as as guys who study pattern recognition, we know that what we're staring at is not normal. It it's not even something we can go back and point to in history. Uh you know, I would have to go back to the Weimar Republic to even get close to some of the things we're witnessing.
(52:05) And look, it shouldn't be lost on anybody that it's not just the the monetary effects. We have social, you know, social problems as well. and and all of this was kind of mirrors what we saw in Limear, Germany in in in the 20s. So yeah, that's why I kind of lead towards the crackup boom thesis. Just my pattern recognition goes back to just first principles of Austrian economics.
(52:33) >> Yeah. I mean on the social side of things, you look at how polarized things are. there's a large subset of the country and I would include myself in that is like okay finally uh as it pertains to immigration and fraud. We're getting back to law and order. If you're an illegal immigrant, it's time for you to go home and if you're fraudulently taking money from Medicaid, Medicare uh programs, we're going to come find you uh and reprimand you appropriately.
(52:59) And then on the other side, you have something I'm sure you've seen at the um Virginia um just what's happening on the ground within the state of Virginia now that Democrats are in control of um the the governorship and the legislature there, the laws that they've passed um since uh the beginning of the year and basically increase taxes on the rich, uh get rid of mandatory minimums, try to create more opacity around voting um and make it easier to to vote from home or do absentee ballots.
(53:33) And it's just going in completely opposite directions for on the right. It's like, okay, we do want to bring back law and order particularly as it pertains to immigration and uh uh federal government fraud, abusing programs like Medicaid, Medicare. And then on the left it's like no, we need to, you know, speedrun this color revolution and make sure that we get uh make it so that we can just do whatever we want um by passing all these laws that lead to more anarch tyranny.
(54:06) >> Yeah, it feels that way, right? And and the division just keeps getting wider and wider. Um, and you know, I'm I'm at a loss as to what they expect to to achieve with these policies, right? Like where where do they think this is heading? And and you have to ask yourself any would any sane person want to go down the road that the far left is is taking us down.
(54:33) And and by the way, like these policies weren't even considered extreme 15 years ago. like this concept of of no borders, open borders. This was this would have 15 years ago it was common place for for people, you know, for ICE to function in our society. And today it's not it it's just I can't explain it, Marty. It we've we've completely departed from rational self-interest.
(55:02) And yeah, you got to ask yourself like, do they think that money's printed on trees? and that you can continue down this road forever. And on some level, I think they do. I think they just believe that you can print money at infinitum and that we won't have a problem. And I I don't know.
(55:23) Is it foreign influence that's doing this? Are are the Chinese behind this? Uh it's possible. I would not be shocked. It's like to highlight the complete insanity and hypocrisy of modern-day policy on uh on immigration policy here in 2015. I don't know. I think actually >> that guy looks familiar. >> Yeah, it's Tom Hman. Um Okay. It appears genuine.
(55:52) Uh I was going to say, >> no, that's real. Yeah, that's real. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I I it looked a little AI, so I just wanted to make sure. But this is a real picture. In 2015, Barack Obama awarded Tom Omen the presidential award for service for making America safer at ICE 10 years later. Um, liberals want him killed.
(56:08) But it is I mean this yeah this mass psychosis that is taken over where something that was once common sense even on the left and I'm sure you've seen many others have seen the campaign videos of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama um two decades ago making it a point to say we're going to secure the border and make sure any illegal immigrant is sent home.
(56:32) Now today you're a right-wing Nazi if you think the same. Uh and again with all the fraud being laid bare, it's completely mind-boggling that anybody would think this is not a worthwhile and virtuous policy. Uh especially if you're an American taxpayer, it's like there's literally just taking money from us. Uh I don't I don't see why there's big effort.
(56:55) And to to your point, like I would not be shocked that there's foreign influence. It does feel very color revolutionary. Like when you look at Antifa, how they operate and I think it's an extension of the weather underground movement from the 60s and uh the Marxist influences that have infiltrated the university system specifically. >> Yeah.
(57:15) Then look, we can even go as far as to talk about H-1B visas, right? So we have legal pro legal immigration problems. Corporations, you know, choosing H-1B over hiring young Americans and, you know, then hiding behind, uh, well, there's no one here to do the jobs. And even Trump said that, right? Like, are you crazy? Like, how did we how did we do this before H-1B visas? Um, and and the whole story is just ludicrous at every level.
(57:45) Again, going back to pattern recognition, I can't find anything in my in my quiver that can parallel what we're witnessing today in society. Um, it's the story is just almost too much, right? That there's so many different fires going on all at once, all over the place that it's really hard to put your finger on, you know, what what do you tackle first? >> Well, that's a question that's been um lingering in my mind.
(58:11) And I haven't uh articulated it or expressed it publicly yet, but it's like I'm beginning to question like the system as it stands today, the fiat um in the sovereign debt system as it exists. Like is the fraud like is late stage the point at which fraud is completely necessary because they need the ability to print money and just like push money into the system by any means necessary even if it's objectively and abhorently fraudulent just to to keep the charade alive.
(58:41) Well, and that and that's the point, right? The GDP lie that we're all told is that we need, you know, we need GDP and the GDP comes from fraud. Money stolen is spent much faster than money earned. So, you know, from the perspective of the government, if you cut out the fraud, we go into a deflationary spiral tomorrow.
(59:06) So again, I don't know how you fix these problems without resetting the money, right? The money is what's broken. It it's the money that's causing all of these extraneous issues. And without fixing the money, we just keep going down this road until it leads to pure civil war. And and I I just again, I don't I don't see a way out.
(59:26) >> Yeah. And and now that we're going further down the story, just thinking generationally, I'm sure you saw the stats came out like average new hire in 2025 was 42 years old and an increase of one and a half years from 2022. The median home buyer is somewhere around 59 60 years old. Um, so young people, another stat I saw the other day and talked about on a video that we released this morning is, um, since 2023, 85% of American citizens under 25 have have essentially dropped out of the job market are not looking for jobs because
(1:00:02) they don't think it's it's worthwhile, which is insane. Um, and to your point, like it we're getting to a generational point, too, where the young people who are supposed to have all this opportunity and and be um in the prime of their lives and having the prime of their lives manifest in financial stability and hopefully family formation and and home buying is just simply not materializing.
(1:00:29) And I mean this is something that is true throughout history. When you have a completely dejected cohort of young predominantly or young male generations, they are going to react in one way and it's usually not a good reaction. And so again going back to my point like a fraud is completely necessary just to sustain the system.
(1:00:52) I think that's just like a a philosophical and social question we have to all step back and ask ourselves at what cost. Um, are we are we trying to just prop up the system? >> Look, the the measure of a society should be how well 30 year olds are doing and how how often they're getting married and are they having three kids and are they buying a home? That would be success for our society, not GDP, you know, through wars and forever wars and military budgets and theft and fraud and everything else that's built into the system. So if we really look at you know
(1:01:27) are 30-year-olds getting married having three kids and buying a home the answer is no and that should be the ultimate metric of are we a successful society not you know what is our GDP uh you know what what are all the the CPI and all the CP lie I should call it and everything else right it's all a whole thing's become a fraud and and the only thing that's going to fix it is getting back to hard money is breaking the back of of this enterprise.
(1:01:58) Uh I I just don't I don't see another way to get there. And I I guess the good news is that we're probably getting there sooner than most people expect. And yeah, it's going to be really really hard. If if we if we hyperinflate the dollar, it's going to be brutal. But out of the ashes of that will be born, you know, a new system based on on real money and and people will earn a good living and kids will be happy again.
(1:02:24) And yeah, the the boomer class is going to get smoked, but that that's the way it's going to play out. It's pretty obvious to me. >> Yeah, it's it's interesting how um the Trump administration has its blind spots here, too, because of the the whole $200 billion mortgage bond buybacks using the proceeds of Fanny May Freddy Mack or the profits from them to to try to force down interest rates.
(1:02:48) um and positioning it as this bailout or not bailout, positioning as a way to bring down uh housing prices for for younger generations. It's like no, it's going to have the complete opposite effect. You're going to bring down mortgage rates um which is just going to push up the price of housing and it's essentially another bailout for the boomer generation.
(1:03:09) But then only a week, two weeks later, uh after announcing that that $200 billion bond buying program, we have the 10 10 year and 30year blowing blowing out to the upside towards 5% which would prove I don't know if they started buying these bonds yet, but it certainly didn't have the effect it would have liked it to have uh even if it was just a headline um two weeks out.
(1:03:34) Yeah, it's pretty clear that our leaders aren't on top of things the way many think they are. I'm no fan of Scott Bessant. Um I I think that they are looking at the situation from the wrong lens. Uh they should be focused on restoring free markets and and getting out of the the fraudulent game, but they're not.
(1:03:58) They're they're just trying to continue to push on a string and eventually that string is going to break. Why do you think that is? Do you think they don't recognize it or do you think they understand the uh the gravity of um what would happen if you ripped out all the fraud? >> Well, I'll tell you, I think Trump's focused on legacy more than anything else, and he doesn't want to preside over economic collapse, but we need economic collapse at this point.
(1:04:29) Um that's the only way you're going to fix the system. So, you know, it's interesting. I I again, I think it comes back to midterms and the entire four-year cycle of the way the way the United States works, right? It it's clear to me that a a benevolent dictator is a far better form of government than what we have with a broken republic.
(1:04:54) Um because at least you get things done here. We can't get anything done and then every two years we got to reshuffle the deck. Uh that being said, you know, it it we do have a constitution to fall back on and if we get back to being a constitutional republic, it's right there in our constitution, we need to have hard money.
(1:05:13) So, um you know, it was getting away from our constitution which got us into this plight, but we're so far away now. I I don't see the road back. >> Yeah. And that's really disconcerting. No, I mean this has become a very popular thought um over the last year, particularly as um some Trump voters uh became sort of a disillusioned by what he's actually done since he got in office for the second time versus what he campaigned on.
(1:05:40) And you have particularly young men calling for a Franco strong man to come in and make everything right. and a lot of people pointing to what Naim Boule has done in El Salvador and saying why can't we have that uh and then obviously you have the other side of the the spectrum which is we need to 10x the size of the government and get more control um in the middle of everything and uh it is a chaotic time to be alive to say the very least and a very hot start to 2026 look the BI story is the benevolent dictator side of things right that
(1:06:16) that's what I'm referring to >> um but that requires suspending constitutional rights and throwing people in jail >> and a lot of people in jail a lot like building prisons and throwing people in a lot of people in jail including politicians, judges and and there's not the political will in the United States to do it.
(1:06:40) So I I just again how do you you know people are calling for Don Lemon to be arrested for the the the issue in Minneapolis the other night. Do you really think even if we we arrest them, isn't a liberal judge just going to throw it out of court? Like, have we got to the point where we can't even enforce law because the system is so broken? Again, I I just I I don't see the the path out of this other than the collapse of the dollar, right? That you collapse the dollar, you collapse the system, you can rebuild the system based on the Constitution. But we're so far
(1:07:14) away from that that I I just don't see how we get there. >> Yeah. Stay frosty out there. Uh stay away from debt. Keep your Bitcoin in cold storage. And uh I think that's the best advice we can give right now, right? >> I think so. I I I honestly think that's the answer right now is when you don't know what to do, do nothing.
(1:07:38) >> Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. We'll have to do this again. Uh we can't wait uh 6 months. We'll probably have to catch up uh in Q2. We get an update on all this. I think as we described earlier, it seems like things are progressing rather quickly right now, particularly in financial markets and even in the geopolitical realm.
(1:08:00) So it could be a completely different landscape uh just a month from now. >> Yeah, I agree. I suspect things are going to move very quickly. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for your time. >> Thanks, Marty. Thanks for having me. I I wish we had a more upbeat uh space, a more upbeat discussion, but uh look, we we got to play the cards we're dealt, and right now we're dealt a very difficult hand, so play it close to the vest and and keep yourself out of trouble.
(1:08:29) >> Yeah, I think it's great advice. No, sometimes you need a a sober recognition of reality, which I think uh the last hour and 5 minutes certainly was that. So, thank you for that. And again, we won't wait 6 months. We'll do it um we'll do it uh in Q2. We'll do a catchup. >> Sounds good, sir.
(1:08:48) Thank you so much for having me. >> Thank you. Peace and love, freaks. >> Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show.
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