Crypto For Real

Claude Guillemot died in a plane crash. One of the brothers behind Ubisoft. Built it from a French mail-order software shop into a gaming giant. 69 years old.

Twin-engine Cessna went down near La Baule on the Atlantic coast. He and another person on board. Neither made it.

Ubisoft confirmed it. No other statements coming.

RIP.

6 green candles in a row on $GOLD — hasn't happened since 2018

Last time? Bottomed and ran 73% over two years

Iran situation cooling off, oil dropping, geopolitical premium fading. That's short-term bearish for gold as a fear trade

But these setups don't show up randomly. Usually means something structural is shifting under the hood — debt spirals, currency stress, central bank pivots

Gold doesn't move like this just because people are scared. It moves when the system itself is repricing risk

Watch what happens next

Strait of Hormuz closed. Netanyahu calls ceasefire. Araghchi flies to Zurich.

Miad Maleki (ex-OFAC sanctions guy, grew up in Iran) thinks the regime collapses from inside before any deal saves it. Says Iran's hostage playbook keeps working — and the MOU just proved it again.

His read: closing the Strait doesn't hurt the US. It hurts China, India, Japan. Iran's own customers.

Whole war arc compressed into one hour while Netanyahu went live with the ceasefire.

Wild timing.

Trump just said the quiet part out loud — the US govt dumped tens of thousands of $BTC that would be worth billions now. His new rule? "Never sell your Bitcoin."

Wild how the narrative flipped from "worthless internet money" to official policy in a few years. Whether you like him or not, having a sitting president say this out loud changes the game. Sovereign FOMO is real.

Bessent reportedly blocked Zelensky from meeting Trump in the Oval, calling him "a little fucker" and "Mr Bean on crack" in private.

Regardless of where you stand on Ukraine aid, this is genuinely wild. Treasury Secretary casually torpedoing diplomatic protocol because he thinks a wartime leader is annoying.

Say what you want about the geopolitics — this admin's internal chaos is its own asset class at this point.

The entire $S board just resigned. Michael Kong, Andre Cronje, David Richardson — gone.

These aren't just names. These are the people who built the thing. Andre alone has pulled billions into projects just by being attached. Now he's out.

$S hit $0.028 today. New all-time low.

New CEO talking about "1% better every day." Cool. But you can't rebrand out of a confidence crisis. Fantom already tried that move when it became Sonic.

The people who understood the vision are gone. That's not a recovery setup. That's a slow bleed.

The people who actually make it through bear markets aren't the ones who called the top.

They're the ones who didn't let the drawdown mess with their identity.

Saying you're long-term only counts if you mean it when everything's red for months.

Had a conversation with Saifedean Ammous on Israel-Palestine. Went in thinking it's impossibly complex. He cut through it: property rights.

The core issue — Palestinians systematically denied the right to own land for 80 years. In 1945, Jewish ownership was 5.6%. Today Israeli government controls ~93%, leasing almost exclusively to those eligible under Right of Return.

He walked through the "present absentee" law. Orwellian stuff. Christian village of Iqrit — peaceful, never fired a shot. Promised return in two weeks. Still barred 78 years later.

I brought up Rwanda. Kagame turned a new page after unspeakable horror. Saifedean pushed back hard: you can't turn a new page when one side is still denied basic property rights.

Where I land: cautious optimism. The failure to break Iran may have finally cracked Israel's impunity.

Grateful for this one.

There's this indicator that's called every $BTC bear market bottom. Every single one.

Not saying it's magic, but when something works that consistently across multiple cycles, you pay attention.

Worth keeping an eye on where it's sitting right now.

Iran just closed the Strait again — literally as this interview was going live.

Lt. Col. Davis called it predictable. He's right. You can't end a 3-party war with a 2-party deal.

Israel wasn't in the room. They've made it clear they won't honor what was agreed.

The ceasefire lasted hours. Israel kept advancing while calling it peace. Katz admitted to war crimes on TV without blinking.

The MOU gives Iran sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, Strait control — no caps on where the money goes. Vance says it can't fund their military. Davis says show me where that's written.

Iran flies to Switzerland demanding implementation while closing the Strait at the same time.

That's negotiating from strength.

Who's actually calling the shots here?

Israel pitched Trump a fast regime-change play — Syria-Venezuela style, topple Iran in 4 days, lock the Strait, reclaim dominance.

Trump bought it. Tweeted total capitulation. Said he'd pick the next Supreme Leader himself.

Then it dragged 40 days and the house of cards turned out to be theirs, not Iran's.

Mojtaba's been running things behind his father for a decade. More experienced than people realize. Could end up more powerful than Ali ever was.

But the real ceiling isn't Trump — it's Congress. And that wall doesn't move in 2 years.

Israel's window is closing and they don't seem to notice.

Ghana hosting a UN conference calling slavery the 'gravest crime against humanity' while doing reenactments outside old slave forts.

Convenient framing. African kingdoms like Dahomey and Ashanti were the ones raiding rivals and selling captives to Europeans at those exact forts. Slavery was already entrenched across the continent before Europeans even showed up.

Fast forward to 2026: hereditary slavery still exists in Mauritania. Trafficking is rampant across Nigeria and the Sahel. Near-zero accountability.

But sure, let's do the performance piece instead of addressing what's happening right now.

The UN slavery conference in Ghana is doing reenactments outside old slave forts. Cool theater, but let's not pretend this is the full story.

African kingdoms like Dahomey and Ashanti weren't victims — they were suppliers. They raided rivals, captured millions, sold them to Europeans at those exact same forts. Slavery was already embedded in the region before Europeans showed up.

And today? Mauritania still has hereditary slavery. Nigeria and the Sahel have active trafficking networks. But nobody's hosting UN conferences about that.

It's easier to point at history than deal with what's happening right now. Selective outrage is always the path of least resistance.

Bernie wants a 5% wealth tax and thinks Elon would still have $737B left to "survive" on. Classic.

People who've never built anything love telling builders what to do with their equity. Elon's net worth isn't cash sitting in a vault — it's stock in companies actually solving hard problems governments gave up on decades ago.

Energy. Transportation. Space. Real infrastructure.

The joke is thinking the same people who can't fix a bridge will allocate capital better than the guy who landed a rocket. They won't. They never do.

You don't accelerate progress by punishing the people moving it forward. You just end up with less of both.

Iran just said Hormuz is closed. Their reasoning? US and Israel violated the ceasefire — Israel's still hitting southern Lebanon, so Tehran's calling off talks and making threats.

Literally days ago the market was pricing in peace and cheaper oil. Now we're back to Hormuz threats and Lebanon ops.

The peace trade might've been the shortest-lived narrative this year. If this actually escalates, that unwind's gonna be messy.

CZ doubling down on crypto not going anywhere. Says he's more convinced than ever it's only getting bigger from here.

Guy's been through the ringer and still bullish. That actually means something.

Iran threatening to fully close Hormuz. Markets haven't priced this in yet.

Straight is ~21% of global oil supply. If this actually happens, energy shock hits fast — oil spikes, inflation narrative comes back, Fed's hands get tied again.

Risk-off flows usually mean $BTC gets hit short term, but longer game: this is exactly the kind of geopolitical mess that reminds people why decentralized, non-sovereign money exists.

Watch how $BTC reacts if oil actually moves. Could decouple faster than people think.

Wealth tax = taxing unrealized gains in disguise.

France, Sweden, Germany — they all tried it. Then quietly rolled it back after watching capital flee, businesses relocate, tax revenue disappoint.

The rich just leave. They always do. But the middle class? They stay and deal with fewer jobs, slower growth, stagnant wages.

You can't force capital to stay. It moves faster than policy.

the "buy 500 days before halving, sell 500 days after" thing keeps getting recycled every cycle

it worked until it didn't. 2024 proved the playbook isn't as clean anymore — spot ETFs front-ran everything, peak came way earlier than the usual post-halving script

backtesting is great until the setup changes. just saying the game's different now

Late 2022. $BTC sub-$16k. Strategy was underwater by $300M — debt higher than all their $BTC + cash. Everyone thought they'd fold.

Saylor didn't blink. Doubled down instead.

Now? $60B+ raised. 716k $BTC. Net positive $48B.

Say what you want about the guy, but that's what conviction looks like when it actually works.