Something

Teeth whistled this week and trumpets went toot-toot as Bitcoin lightly toasted $69,000. Those in, grinned liked cats; those out, muttered about utility and tulips. What appears to have fired up the recent run is the January approval of some spot bitcoin ETFs, launched by those ever in-it-to-win-it sorts at Blackrock and Fidelity. Cue a frantic 60% romp higher as the deliciously controversial medium went ever more mainstream. A ”paradigm shift” panted one breathless cheerleader. What you do with it remains a mystery. For those more inclined to back a store of value that has weathered several thousand years of civilisation, gold too has smashed through a record high. To little fanfare. What drives the price of gold has long vexed observers. Haven status for some, inflation hedge for others. Barbarous relic to many. Perhaps the run up is down to Biden flaring the nostrils and going after Russia’s pile of US Treasuries, thereby putting the willies up overseas holders of the world’s flagship ‘risk free’ asset. Perhaps it’s concerns about stability of the financial system: “Bought for $949 million two San Francisco offices have been marked down to zero”. Perhaps it’s none of those things and, as Western investors dump gold to load up on AI, Eastern buying has stepped in: “Fēicháng gǎnxiè”. Or maybe it’s just all the debt. The trillions and trillions of salty debt. And deficit spending that is by any sober measure, out of control. An artificial E-number that has so sweetened economic growth, to the surprise of many a recessionista . Voltaire mused in 1727 as he stirred his morning coffee, that every single currency in history goes to zero. All fiat currencies become, in his gritty words, “worthless, pieces of paper with dead people on them that no longer buy anything”. Most are finished off by hyperinflation. The crypto fest is getting the bulls horn of the headlines, but what exactly is it that both bitcoin and gold are sniffing out? Easy to ignore, until it isn’t. Like 8-irons and marriage, the riskiest trades are often those that are perceived to be safe, but for some reason, are not. KAPOW. The NFTs of bored apes are also back. Tread softly.