The Bitcoin Layer

In this episode, Nik covers the strong jobs report and whether it is enough to push the Fed toward a rate hike. He explains why the two-year yield near 4.38% shows the market pricing in hikes more aggressively than at any point since the election, and why he thinks the Treasury and the Fed will instead find a way to force front-end rates lower, given an interest burden approaching a quarter of tax revenue. Nik also covers the 4.81% level on the ten-year, why a flattening yield curve signals demand for safe assets rather than a debt spiral, why Europe worries him more than the United States, and the level bitcoin has to close above.

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

In this episode, Nik covers the chaos in global government bond markets, with yields rising from the United States to Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. He explains what actually drives bond yields, why inflation is structurally higher in 2026 than in the last fifteen years, and why Kevin Warsh told G20 finance leaders that the global savings glut is reversing into an investment surge. Nik walks through how the AI buildout is pulling capital out of treasuries, why NVIDIA chips are becoming bond collateral, and which countries actually have to worry. He closes with a tour of TBL Pulse and why Johan Bergman's state grid shows bitcoin leaving the capitulation zone. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this video, Nik covers the market reaction to Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech, starting with the two-year yield pushing back toward its highs near 4.35% and what that says about the market pricing in rate hikes. He explains why the yield curve flattening from 50 to 37 basis points on the week is the move he finds most important, how a flattening curve prices growth out of the economy, and why Michael Howell's read frames it as a premium for safe assets. Nik also revisits the recession call TBL got wrong in 2022, and covers bitcoin's three failed attempts at $81,000 this week.

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

In this episode, Nik welcomes Ben Justman, founder of Peony Lane Wine in Paonia, Colorado, the highest wine region in North America. Ben explains how he learned winemaking on his father's farm, why high elevation and dry farming shape his Pinot Noir, and why the 73 ingredients American winemakers can add without putting them on a label led Nik to call it fiat wine. Ben shares that 30 to 50% of his customers pay in bitcoin. Nik covers why the Treasury buybacks are not material, why Bessent has said the United States needs to move away from reserve currency status, and why he now calls him the Secretary of Financial War.

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

In this Global Macro Update, Nik covers the financial war he sees playing out across treasuries and currencies, and why bitcoin popped above $67,000 on the back of it. He walks through the trend lines he is watching, and why the zone between $70,000 and $82,000 is the work bitcoin has to do before a technical bull market emerges. Nik explains why he calls Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the Secretary of Volatility, where he thinks Bessent's lines in the sand sit on the dollar and the ten-year yield, and how the new buyback program functions as a form of yield curve control. He also covers why rates are rising naturally in an AI boom.

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

In this episode, Nik covers bitcoin's 22% week and a run that took price to just shy of $80,000. He walks through the multi-year trend line connecting the FTX lows to the start of the ETF bull market, why bitcoin generates most of its returns in short concentrated bursts, and the bullish divergence that showed up before this move. Nik explains why he thinks the real driver was not the Treasury buyback but the yen intervention and the developing US-Japan monetary alliance, and why Kevin Warsh lowering front-end rates is the only lever left. He closes on gold's run to $5,500 and the rising correlation between bitcoin and gold.

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

In this episode, Demian welcomes back Joe Consorti for a conversation on the Clarity Act and what it means for bitcoin. Joe explains the bill's three buckets, how it would separate commodities from securities and put bitcoin under the CFTC, and why he sees that as a win for investor protections rather than price. He covers why the bill has stalled in the Senate over ethics concerns, why he thinks that fight is now ideological, and why the stablecoin rails it would create make it bullish long term. Joe also covers Russia legalizing bitcoin for cross-border settlement, the jobs revisions that boxed in the Fed, and why he thinks bitcoin's low is likely in.

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

In this episode, Demian welcomes back Stacie Waleyko, a bitcoin developer with the Bitcoin Dev Project, on the Coldcard entropy vulnerability and the ongoing theft of funds. Stacie explains how hardware wallets are supposed to source randomness, why affected devices fell back to a weaker software path, and why anyone with funds from a post-2021 Coldcard should move them now. She covers the suspicion that attackers used an open weight model to grind through the reduced key space, how a licensing switch removed the Trezor library that had worked, and why she now points people toward multi-vendor multisig. They also get into covenants and why she argues self custody is not dead. The Bitcoin Layer and its guests do not provide investment advice.

In this episode, Nik welcomes Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, for a conversation on his exit from Twenty One. Jack describes the guilt and humility of stepping away from a company whose vision he says did not work, and where Strike sits between an operating company like Coinbase and a conviction vehicle like Strategy. He shares his reaction to the Coldcard vulnerability, which he calls a horror because the victims did everything right, and why he still does not think self-custody is dead. Jack also covers the red team of AI agents now testing Strike's code, and why he calls America's AI strategy shameful next to China's open-source push.

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

In this episode, Nik welcomes back Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research on the Coldcard key generation vulnerability and the theft that followed. Alex explains how a March 17, 2021 firmware change left the devices silently defaulting to a much weaker random number generator, a bug that went unfound for five years, and why the victims are self-custody holders who never leaked a key or made a mistake. He walks through Galaxy's on-chain tracing across three confirmed waves totaling roughly 1,350 bitcoin, or about $88 million, why the stolen coins are sitting inert, how cheap compute and open source AI models made the exploit trivial, and what Coldcard owners should consider doing now.

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