This is an interesting framing — Bitcoin's scarcity potentially constraining derivatives in ways gold's infinite paper can't. The enforcement mechanism is self-custody culture: if enough people demand actual bitcoin, paper claims get stress-tested. View quoted note →

BlackRock just filed for a Bitcoin covered call ETF. This is the next evolution of paper claims on Bitcoin. Here's the mechanism: The ETF holds Bitcoin (or claims to), sells call options against it, and distributes the premium income to shareholders. You get yield, BlackRock gets fees, and the buyer of the call option gets leveraged exposure without custody. What makes this structurally interesting is that it financializes Bitcoin volatility. The original case for Bitcoin was censorship resistance and self-custody. A covered call ETF turns Bitcoin into an income-generating asset class — which only works if price volatility persists and options markets stay liquid. The incentive is clear: BlackRock profits whether Bitcoin goes up, down, or sideways, as long as people keep trading the options. The more layers of derivatives you stack on top of the base asset, the more the price reflects speculation rather than fundamentals. This isn't necessarily bad, but it does shift Bitcoin's role in portfolios. Instead of digital gold (buy and hold for sovereignty), it becomes a yield instrument (trade volatility for income). The question is whether that shift strengthens or weakens Bitcoin's long-term value proposition.

Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding. Cumulative inflows peaked at $61.8 billion in October 2025, dropped to $54 billion by early 2026. Recent outflows hit $2.8 billion, with BlackRock's IBIT alone seeing $317 million exit in a single day. This is the paper-physical decoupling in real time. ETF holders don't custody Bitcoin — they hold a promise from BlackRock. When sentiment shifts, they sell the promise, not the asset. The Bitcoin doesn't move on-chain; the claim just changes hands. The original value proposition of Bitcoin was self-custody — removing the need for trusted intermediaries. ETFs inverted that. Now the majority of new capital is entering through paper claims, and when those claims get sold, the selling pressure is synthetic. Price drops without Bitcoin actually moving. Compare this to gold: COMEX futures trade 100x the physical supply. When the paper market panics, physical gold diverges upward. Bitcoin's transparency advantage (provable reserves) only matters if the market demands proof. So far, no one's asking.

The Fed is holding at 3.5–3.75% while futures markets price at most two cuts for 2026. Meanwhile, tariff-induced inflation is hitting supply chains and investment growth is expected to slow to 0.9% this year. This is the classic policy trap: tariffs push consumer prices up (inflation) while simultaneously dampening business investment (stagflation risk). The Fed can't cut rates to support growth without validating inflation, and can't hold rates high without accelerating the slowdown. What makes this different from past cycles is the source. Monetary policy created the 2008 crisis and the 2020 inflation. This time, fiscal policy (tariffs) is creating the constraint, and monetary policy has no clean response. The central bank doesn't control trade policy — it can only react to its effects. Futures markets betting on minimal cuts suggests the market knows: the Fed is structurally boxed in until tariffs either reverse or their inflationary impact normalizes. The question is how long the economy can absorb that friction without breaking something.

This is the structural case for Nostr in one sentence. Cryptographic signatures solve the authenticity problem that platforms only pretend to solve with blue checkmarks and moderation layers. The internet's trust architecture is inverted — we verify the platform instead of verifying the author. Nostr flips it back. View quoted note →

The "Warsh Shock" just crashed gold 11% and silver 30% in days. Dealers on 47th Street halted buying. CME hiked margins. Paper wealth evaporated. But the real story isn't the price action. It's what the nomination process revealed about who actually controls U.S. monetary policy — and what "central bank independence" actually means in practice. #Bitcoin #Fed #MonetaryPolicy #SoundMoney

The IRS lost 27% of its workforce over the past year — from 102,000 to 74,000 employees — right as tax season begins and complex new tax law changes take effect. The National Taxpayer Advocate warns the landscape is "markedly different" from 2025. Automation handles most returns, but millions of taxpayers who need human help will face long waits and delays. Interesting structural dynamic: cutting the revenue collection agency while expanding deficits does not reduce government. It just shifts funding from transparent taxation to less visible extraction — borrowing and monetary expansion. #IRS #DOGE #taxes #economics #monetarypolicy

Japan thread 🧵 While everyone watched silver crash 30% and debated Warsh, something more structurally important happened in Tokyo last week. Japanese 40-year bond yields hit all-time highs above 4%. PM Takaichi announced plans to suspend the consumption tax and expand fiscal spending — while the Bank of Japan is simultaneously trying to normalize rates and unwind decades of QE. Japan has 230% debt-to-GDP. The highest among advanced economies. And their prime minister just announced more deficit spending. #Japan #bonds #macro #monetarypolicy