The Bitcoin Layer

In this episode, Nik covers bitcoin’s reaction to the Binance hack, in which $6.3 billion was taken from the exchange’s hot wallet. He explains why a 5% drawdown is far milder than he would have guessed for news of that size, why this is different from the FTX collapse, and how the hacker used DeFi collateral to move stablecoins before issuers could freeze them. Nik then turns to the levels he is watching below $82,700, why gold losing its trend line opens up $3,400, and why a bearish divergence in the Nasdaq suggests more downside. He closes on month end funding and why the calendar matters here.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik covers the Fed’s decision to hold and the reaction that surprised him more than the decision itself: Bloomberg’s anchors in full meltdown over how Kevin Warsh is communicating. He walks through their three complaints, the dissents, Warsh declining to explain why the Fed didn’t hike, and the suggestion that Williams and Jefferson are really setting policy. Nik explains why he thinks the hold was justified given how much conditions tightened after September, and why Warsh believes higher rates will slow the AI buildout. He closes on bitcoin’s four price drivers and why a steepening yield curve could relieve some pressure. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes Peruvian Bull, also known as Roberto Rios, author of the Dollar Endgame, for a deep look at Japan. They trace the story from the 1980s bubble and the Plaza Accord through the lost decades, the move to zero rates, and the yield curve control era that made the yen the world’s funding currency. Roberto explains how the carry trade grew into something the Bank of Japan can no longer tame, why recent interventions cost $91 billion and included the US Treasury and Federal Reserve for the first time since 1998, and why Japan now has to choose between letting the currency fall or letting JGB yields rip.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik covers three funding headlines that landed within days of each other: Anthropic filing for an IPO, SpaceX going to the bond market for $40 billion, and Meta raising $95 billion in equity. He explains why so much issuance at once signals the funding window is narrowing, why a turning credit cycle starves everything on the fringe, and why stock valuations and earnings growth are already rolling over.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes back Dr. Giovanni Santostasi and Dr. Stephen Perrenod of the Scientific Bitcoin Institute, joining from Lugano, to explain the bitcoin power law. Giovanni walks through why bitcoin’s price plotted against time produces a straight line on a log log chart, and why an R squared of 0.97 means only 3% of the price history falls outside it. Stephen explains the two power laws underneath it, adoption growing as the cube of time, the same rate as the internet and as viruses, and value growing with the square of users. They also cover their peer reviewed paper and why the math suggests bitcoin is empirically a peer to peer network.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes back Matt Dines to talk through where we are in the credit cycle and why he thinks we are in the late innings. Matt walks through the names he watches widening every day, from Oracle and CoreWeave to JetBlue bonds trading at 61 cents on the dollar, and explains why record high yield deals from SoftBank and Paramount Skydance mean companies are issuing with a gun to their head rather than by choice. He argues that a QE response would be the wrong prescription, because the disease is tight resource markets rather than a purely financial problem. Nik and Matt close on what a default wave would mean for bitcoin. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Demian explains TBL’s analysis of why bitcoin is holding up even as liquidity hit its lowest point of the cycle. He covers how the TBL Liquidity Index works, what a red dot actually signals, and why bitcoin’s own supply and demand have shifted in its favor as the sellers ran out and more than 70% of supply moved into profit. He closes on the three things that would need to ease for liquidity to turn.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik explains the bitcoin power law and why he believes it points to a million dollar bitcoin in the early 2030s. He walks through bitcoin’s orders of magnitude, four years to go from $1,000 to $10,000 and eight years to reach $100,000, and why the next zero may take a similar stretch. Nik covers where the power law comes from, the exponent Giovanni Santostasi solved for, and why power laws show up in nature, from the education level of a city to how much an elephant eats. He also explains why bitcoin trading below the bottom band of its power law has historically been a good place to accumulate. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik explains what he thinks is the easiest way to introduce bitcoin to new investors, which comes down to returns. He compares bitcoin against stocks, bonds, and gold across three, five, seven, and ten year windows, showing where bitcoin trails and where it separates, including the five year stretch where gold and stocks both beat it. Nik then walks through the HODL Cave, which plots returns by holding period and shows that nobody who has held bitcoin for six years has ever lost money, with median returns climbing above 100x at ten years. He closes on why he expects forward returns in the 30s rather than the 60s.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik covers bitcoin losing the $82,700 level he had been tracking, falling 3% for a second straight day. He explains why he is watching 71 to 74,000 as the next support, why a negative liquidity environment mutes bitcoin's returns, and why the dollar squeeze building through October is a main reason liquidity is reading negative. Nik also covers gold testing a trend line it has held since 2025, why the ten-year yield may finally be catching a bid after a strong auction, why the twos tens curve is the chart he watches most closely, and why French bond spreads are back at 2011 levels.

The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.