The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

(I am sending this week’s commentary early this week due to travel)

Dear Chancellor,

Me again.

I am the author of Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014), generally agreed to the first book on bitcoin from a recognised publisher.

I write with regard to the proposed sale of the UK’s bitcoin.

Since bitcoin was first introduced in 2009 - invented in reaction to the loose monetary policies of the Global Financial Crisis - bank bail outs, quantitative easing, zero interest policies etc - and the economic injustices they created, the protocol has grown from nothing to a market cap above $2 trillion. A whole new economy has emerged around the technology where none previously existed, providing countless opportunities for individuals, entrepreneurs and nations alike.

Initially the domain of a few coders, it is now finding mass adoption at the corporate and even national level. The US is recognizing the digital asset’s importance, as it introduces its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, while China, according to estimates, holds 190,000 coins.

Initially, the UK was at the heart of the Bitcoin story. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor, wrote in British English, cited UK media, and many early meetups and conferences took place here. Chancellors George Osborne and Rishi Sunak both expressed their desire for the UK to become a global hub for this emerging technology. But the FCA took an opposing view and made it increasingly difficult for UK citizens to participate, so that we have now fallen behind.

Opinion about bitcoin is divided. Those who use the technology regularly believe it is not just likely, but inevitable, that it will become the world’s dominant monetary network. Many others – typically the older generation, economists or legacy finance – dismiss it as a bubble, often without having tested the tech in any meaningful way.

Whichever side of the debate you fall on, the fact that Bitcoin has become the most desired digital asset in the world is indisputable.

Among the many features that make bitcoin unique is that its supply is finite. With its estimated 61,000 confiscated bitcoins, the UK has been gifted an extraordinary opportunity. We now hold roughly 0.3% of total supply.

I understand that politics demands a focus on the short term – the next Budget, the next election – but I urge you to approach your decision with long-term vision. Please consult with people who regularly use the technology. Do not make this decision based solely on advice from people who never use bitcoin.

Take Bulgaria, for example. In 2017, it sold all of its seized bitcoin to cover a short-term budget gap. Those coins today would be worth enough to eliminate the country’s entire national debt.

From a strategic perspective, the UK’s bitcoin holdings represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As fiat currencies decline in purchasing power and the global economy moves toward digital and AI-driven systems, this asset could help Britain re-establish itself as an economic superpower with significant geopolitical leverage and monetary independence.

An opportunity of this kind is not to be thrown away lightly.

Once those coins are sold, we will never be able to buy them back.

If bitcoin becomes a hundred trillion dollar network – as some project – the UK's share could prove transformational. That may sound fanciful today, but every surprise in bitcoin’s history has been to the upside.

There is also your personal political legacy to consider.

You would be the Chancellor who sold Britain’s bitcoin.

That will be how people remember you – just as Gordon Brown, for all else he did, is remembered primarily for needlessly selling Britain’s gold at the bottom of the market. For the rest of your life, every timebBitcoin rises in price, people will look at what you sold our coins for and say: “This is how much she lost us.” You are consigning yourself to that fate.

Do you want that to be your legacy?

So once again, I implore you: take advice from people who understand this technology and its potential. Don’t just listen to nocoiners.

If you sell bitcoin for fiat you are swapping a superior asset for an inferior one. It is that simple.

The trade might bring short-term benefit, but it does nothing to address the underlying structural issues facing this country. If, however, you hold on to the bitcoin – and understand how to integrate it into policy – perhaps create a UK Strategic Reserve - you may find it solves many of our problems.

As bitcoiners often say, “bitcoin fixes this.”

I hope you read and consider this letter with an open-mind.

Yours sincerely,Dominic FrisbyAuthor of Bitcoin: The Future of Money?Writer of The Flying Frisby newsletter

PS Please like, share - all that stuff. Thank you!

At Freedom Fest 2025 last month, I joined a very sensible panel - grown up people saying intelligent things - in a gold vs bitcoin debate, from which I came way thinking, “Oh, that was quite good”.

It has just been released, so I thought I would share it for your Sunday thought piece.

As always if you enjoy the discussion, please like it and share. It he…

I wanted to consider the Great (irony klaxon) British pound today, and indeed currencies more generally.

So many people — too many people — are forecasting some kind of UK debt crisis, which would almost certainly take down sterling. Yet, some weakness in the last week or two aside, sterling has actually had a pretty good year — by FX standards, that is. Of course, it’s been crap against gold and bitcoin. Proper money.

A word of warning: while my macro calls are generally pretty good, on sterling they’ve been consistently terrible. Doesn’t mean I won’t eventually get one right. Maybe today’s the day.

I’m trying to go into this article with no preconceptions. I haven’t yet decided which way I think sterling’s going. I’m ambivalent. I’m going to make my conclusions based on price action, which I’ll study as I write.

Were I to base my call on the current fundamentals of the UK economy — high taxes about to get higher, more regulations, more government spending, uncontrollable deficits, and an unpopular, incompetent government with little in the way of coherent vision or first principles, but likely here to stay for the next four years — I’d be more bearish than Winnie the Pooh.

But FX is a funny old game, as low-IQ football pundits from the 1980s were prone to say. On the other side of every currency pair is another nation with its own, sometimes bigger problems.

The direction of cable — GBPUSD — for example, tends to be determined byUS dollar strength or weakness, rather than the pound, because the US has the weightier economy. The pound could be woefully managed (it is), but if the US powers-that-be want the dollar lower, that urge will be more significant.The same goes for the yen or the euro.

Interest rates are a huge factor too and, here in the UK, despite word that the Bank of England was going to take them down a notch or two, yesterday’s news that UK inflation ‘unexpectedly’ hit its highest level since January 2024 means it’s now going to struggle to do that. Inflation is supposed to be below 3% — it’s currently 3.6%, the highest of the G7 nations.

Look at this headline from the Guardian if you want to see how mainstream thinking gets cause and effect completely backwards.

Since when do food and fuel prices drive inflation? It’s the other way round. They’re the consequences of inflation.

Meanwhile, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said only two days ago in the Times: “I really do believe the path is downward” for interest rates. (They currently stand at 4.25%, with the next MPC meeting on August 7th). So yesterday’s numbers leave him with even more egg on what is already an eggy face.

It’s hard to justify lower rates when we have the highest inflation in the G7. The market, meanwhile, seems to think we won’t get lower rates, because the pound actually steadied on yesterday’s surprise inflation numbers.

But if the Bank wants lower rates, I’m sure they’ll employ some wonk-speak sophistry to justify it.

Buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times? The bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.

Taking the big picture view

Let’s look at the most important currency, the US dollar, going back to 1990. Its bear and bull trends tend to last many years — 1995-2000 (bull); 2000-2008 (bear); 2008-2022 (bull). The near 15-year bull market from 2008 to late 2022 is over. It looks like we’re in another bear cycle. How long does it go on? Do we eventually end up below 80 again?

Also of note is how this year’s declines stopped at that rising blue trend line.

Perhaps we’re not in a bear cycle after all, and this multi-year bull market now resumes. Almost no one is looking for that — so perhaps that’s exactly what we get.

After such precipitous falls this year (from 110 to 96), a rebound rally to at least 100 — and possibly the choppy zone between 100 and 105 — is pretty likely, even if it only proves to be a counter-trend rally.

Let’s see what you think. Here’s a quick poll:

So to sterling… what’s next?

Any dollar strength and sterling will hit the skids.

I wanted to take a look at gold today.

I’m going to dust off my powers of divination — or as they call it in the City, technical analysis - and see if we can figure out where it is going next.

As things got frothy back in April, I argued that the market was probably due a breather. The summer is usually gold’s weakest season. Why this should be I don’t know, but it is.

You’ll often find it makes a low in May or June, then re-tests that low in July or August, then things pick up in the autumn or fall, as our more literal cousins call it.

In any case, I’m pleased to report that gold has basically range-traded, or consolidated, since the frothy days of April, between $3,500 and $3,100.

The $3,000 level has more than held, which makes me wonder if we shall ever see gold with a $2,000 handle ever again. Unless there is a 2008 or Covid-style panic, I rather doubt we will.

Meanwhile, the RSI (see the bottom panel below) has come off, meaning the heat has come out of the market, which is good.

Since the US confiscation of Russian assets in 2022, pretty much every pull back to 50-day moving average (red line) has been bought, and they continue to be bought. The average is now flattening out, as you would expect with this summer consolidation, rather as it did late last year. Some sideways consolidation is good. Ideally, you want to see the short-, medium- and long-term moving averages all flatten and converge. There often follows a big move higher.

The long-term moving averages (1 year and so on - not shown here) still have a bit of catching up to do (they are around $2,850 at the minute), which they will and fairly quickly as the gold price continues this sideways action.

We also have something of a triangle forming (see blue lines) - with lower highs and higher lows. Triangles are seen as continuation patterns. In other words, whatever was the direction going into the formation will be the direction coming out. Up, that is to say.

I rather think this triangle will complete just as the moving averages converge.

When you look at gold against other currencies, the same process can be seen: a summer consolidation after an excellent winter and spring.

If you are in any doubt as to whether you should own gold or not, let me answer that for you in the words of the former HSBC fund manager Charlie Morris, who now writes Atlas Pulse, one of the best newsletters out there - (you should subscribe it’s free). “Gold should be the cornerstone of an investment portfolio,” he says. “It is remarkable how few professional investors understand this”.

Charlie may have a point. Look how underweight gold western portfolios are. Below 2%. Nuts.

The Trump administration is going to run enormous deficits. It is not attempting to hide the fact. The same goes for the Starmer administration in the UK. The Labour backbenchers, who now seem to control policy, will not allow reduced spending. We saw that last week. Most EU nations have not got their spending under control. It means further declines in the purchasing power of the dollar, pound and euro are inevitable. Gold is your protection.

What’s more, as demonstrated by the enormous buying coming out of Asia from Shanghai Cooperation Nations, China especially, it is clear gold is becoming a highly important strategic asset again. It is this buying, plus some huge options trading in China, that is driving this bull market, and it began shortly after, as I say, the seizure of Russian US dollar assets.

Metals Daily’s Ross Norman, whose track record forecasting the gold price is second to none, tells me: “We are confident that there is significant unreported central bank gold buying which, coupled with some pretty heady options plays from within China, accounts primarily for a near doubling in the gold price over the last 18 months or so.

He goes on:

The days when central banks telegraphed their moves in advance in the interest of transparency are long gone (thank you Gordon) and they are far more nuanced and opportunistic in their approach.

With Asian central banks very much under-weight gold reserves, and energised by a growing debt crisis, further fuelled by the trend to reduce dollar holdings and you have a perfect set-up for a continuing gold bull run.

At the moment the East invests in gold while the West divests which actually sums up the last 30 years between those hemispheres.

This bull market is consolidating. It is not over. Whether it’s because of de-dollarisation or your nation’s deficit spending, there is demand for gold, which is going to send the price higher.

It may be an analogue asset in a digital world. But you will be glad you own it.

Until next time,

Dominic

If buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times, the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.

Some recent articles which may be of interest:

NB Somebody on social media is impersonating me again, sliding in to DMs, soliciting investment. Please ignore, block, report etc. Here they are on Substack.

Right, here we go.

Dear Chancellor Reeves

“Revenue cannot be derived unless the land is productive.”— Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph

I hope you have a moment to consider what I have to say.

My name is Dominic Frisby. Among other things, I am the author of a well-received book on the history of taxation, Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future.

I am writing to you about Stamp Duty — a tax that is causing stagnation, where you need growth.

At present, if I wish to buy a house, I must first sell other assets to fund the purchase. This incurs capital gains tax. Then, on buying the property, I face another sizeable tax in the form of Stamp Duty. So I am taxed twice on the same money.

The alternative is simply to stay put and do nothing, thereby paying no tax at all. Unsurprisingly, this is what most people do, which is why turnover in the housing market is so poor.

How much economic activity is lost, when I stay put?

* The stocks and shares I might have sold miss out on the fresh investment they would otherwise receive from their new buyer — investment so vital for businesses to grow.

* All the economic activity that follows a house purchase vanishes: estate agents, conveyancing solicitors, surveyors, removals companies, builders, decorators, materials suppliers, architects, furniture shops, DIY stores.

* I do not take out a new mortgage or insurance policy, nor hire tradesmen to upgrade kitchens, bathrooms or gardens, nor set up new utilities, broadband contracts or local services.

* I do not trigger a purchase chain, meaning the person I would have bought from does not buy somewhere else, and all the activity that would create is lost too.

* Nor do I relocate for work, missing new job opportunities, so the economy loses the productivity boost of people moving closer to better jobs.

When I stay put, there is no revenue at all for the Exchequer — neither from Stamp Duty, nor from VAT on all these goods and services, nor from increased corporation tax on profits, nor from higher Income Tax on increased earnings, nor from the local spending that supports countless jobs and wages. Instead, there is stagnation where there could have been growth.

Stamp Duty, largely a creation of the Tories, has immobilised the country.

Britain desperately needs growth. Growth requires turnover. The best way to encourage turnover is to remove barriers to trade. Taxes — whether tariffs or duties, whatever form they take — are the biggest barriers of all.

When Rishi Sunak temporarily reduced Stamp Duty during Covid, we saw exactly this effect: turnover increased, economic activity surged. Revenue to the Exchequer followed.

A permanent removal of Stamp Duty would trigger a powerful boost not just to the property market but to the entire economy, meaning the government, too, would have more money to spend on whatever it sees fit.

There is so much pent up demand, the resulting economic growth might even be enough to save this government at the next election.

What’s more, the Tories imposed these duties, so it is an opportunity to score some points against their failure.

It would, quite literally, get Britain moving again.

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the golden rule of taxation is that lower taxes and fewer taxes lead to higher revenues. History shows this time and again.

In the words of John F Kennedy

It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.

I hope you will give this serious thought.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,Dominic Frisby

PS If you enjoyed this letter, please like, share and all that stuff. It helps.

You can find more on this subject in this video:

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If you are buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times - and I urge you to own gold, given how governments are debasing currency - the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.

Finally, ICYMI, here is this week’s mid-week piece:

Many thanks for completing my weekend polls (here they are if you missed them: paying subscribers / non-paying).

Your answers were extremely useful: roughly the right amount of content, stick with the audio, the balance of investment ideas and other stuff is about right, and the price too is about right (interestingly, paying subscribers thought that, non-paying less so — that put a smile on my face). Also: keep writing about what I know.

You’re a bit more equivocal about the video content. There are more gold than bitcoin bugs in the readership, with a healthy number are in the “own both” camp.

And so many of you joined my Comedy Substack, it became one of Substack Humor’s fastest movers. Yippee. Thank you!

Today I am going to tell you about my seven largest investment positions.

Take note: the asset allocation I advocate is the Dolce Far Niente portfolio. This is 15% in gold, 5% in bitcoin, and we have a large allocation to global equities, especially the US. It also has a 10% allocation to risky/fun investments: small caps, special situations and so on (the kind of flutters I write about here). The reason for this allocation is to minimise risk and any damage caused by losses.

Do as I say, not as I do and all that. My personal allocation does not fully correspond to the Dolce Far Niente, partly for lack of discipline, partly because I have a greater appetite for risk and will stomach bad losses, if they come around, partly because I am overweight bitcoin.

My largest positions

As I am sure you know, my two largest positions are in bitcoin and gold. In my view everyone should have an allocation to these assets. Given the debasement of currency taking place worldwide, the greater risk is not owning them.

On which note …

If you want to buy gold or silver to protect yourself in these interesting times, the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.

But we will put those to one side.

After bitcoin and gold, my seven largest positions are:

Oh, my goodness me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen volatility like it.

We have a huge speculative bubble on our hands, and it’s popping.

What’s more, this bubble is full of chancers, charlatans and chief executive officers.

The Mail has got onto the story. That is not a good sign.

If I told you ten days ago that the price of a share you just bought would rise from 6p to 40p in a week, you’d be pretty happy.

Then again, if I told you on Monday that something you owned was going to drop by 60% the following day, you’d be pretty unhappy.

That’s what happened with the UK-listed bitcoin treasury companies.

Nobody said it would be easy.

Today we are going to try and make some sense of what is going on. We have a comprehensive list of all the UK companies jumping on this nutty bandwagon. And, most importantly, we consider what to do next.

Let’s start with a timely reminder: owning a speculative bitcoin treasury company is not the same as owning bitcoin. One is a crazy speculation, the other is the future money system of the world. Bitcoin treasury stocks ≠ bitcoin

I hope that is clear.

Now a rant.

The Great British FCA Crypto Farce

I’m looking at the price of Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN) this morning. It is ranging from 60p to 30p, i.e. doubling and halving. This situation means the beloved UK market makers might be creaming off enough money to keep them in caviar and truffles for the foreseeable future, but the ordinary retail investor is getting hammered.

In the course of 7 trading days, Coinsilium has gone from 6p to 90p to 30p.

The bitcoin price, meanwhile, is pretty much unchanged.

This situation is almost entirely a creation of the FCA, with its decision to “protect” UK investors from the dangers of cryptocurrencies. That protection began in 2020 when bitcoin was $5,000. Today it’s $105,000. That’s a $100,000 per coin increase—a 21x or 2,000% gain—UK investors were protected from.

Remember UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak spinning his “Britcoin” BS?

“It’s my ambition to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology, and the measures we’ve outlined today will help to ensure firms can invest, innovate and scale up in this country.

We want to see the businesses of tomorrow – and the jobs they create – here in the UK, and by regulating effectively we can give them the confidence they need to think and invest long-term.

This is part of our plan to ensure the UK financial services industry is always at the forefront of technology and innovation.”

Nobody told the FCA! How was any of that even remotely possible when the FCA had banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK consumers, and effectively regulated cryptoasset technology out of existence in the UK?

Did the two departments even speak before he trotted out that rollocks?

Of course they didn’t. They are different departments.

It’s as though the UK government is inherently incompetent.

Remember UK Chancellor George Osborne publicising himself buying bitcoin at an ATM? The FCA made ATMs illegal.

Remind me. Who voted for the FCA? Or indeed Ofcom? Or Ofsted?

Why do these bodies have such extraordinary power?

It’s enough to make you a libertarian.

In any case, we now have this situation of extraordinary pent-up demand, built up over many years, with hundreds of billions of pounds in ISAs and pensions wanting exposure. The result is this insane volatility in UK bitcoin treasury companies.

Smarter Web Company (AQUS:SWC) went from 2.5p to above 600p, giving it a market cap over a billion. It has just £45 million in assets. Great work, FCA.

Today it’s sitting just below 300p.

Japan has similarly prohibitive anti-bitcoin regulations, and has thereby created the market leader in this second wave of bitcoin treasury companies, Metaplanet (3350:TYO). (Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) was the leader in phase one.)

The Japanese company announced this week that it has raised another $500 million, with which it is going to pay down its 0% debt and buy more bitcoins. Why is it paying down its debt? Presumably to clean up its balance sheet so it can raise further capital on better terms to buy more bitcoin (it has targeted 1% of total supply, which would be 210,000 bitcoin). The Japanese market is starved of bitcoin access. Metaplanet is exploiting this situation.

Despite a flat bitcoin price, there was a worldwide sell-off of treasury companies starting on Monday. The sell-off coincided, as these things always seem to, with coverage in the mainstream press. In this case, the Mail marked the top with a piece on the Smarter Web Company.

Pretty much all the treasury sh1tcos are now down 50–70%. Is that it? Game over? Or was that just phase one?

I’ve seen this play out many times over the years. I’ve seen it with uranium sh1tcos in 2006, gold junkcos, silver rubbishcos, graphite flybynights, helium hotaircos and more

It doesn’t take a genius to work out where all this is going, and a lot of people are going to make a lot of money. A lot more are going to lose a lot of money.

These things are not necessarily going to zero - they will have bitcoin on their balance sheet. But when bitcoin has one of its biennial corrections, they are going to get crucified.

But we are also going to see a new corporate model emerge as a result.

It’s dotcom, basically. But which companies will be the Amazons and Microsofts? And which are Pets.com and ClickMango?

Every day we are hearing news of another company “pivoting” - who invented that awful word? - into a bitcoin treasury company. It is all happening very quickly.

Here’s a list of the UK companies getting in on the game. Then we will look at what to do next .

Meet the Players.

Should I say, '‘Monkeys”?

In addition to Smarter Web Company (AQUIS:SWC) and Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN) we have:

I am writing today’s dispatch from Prague Airport, on my way back to Blighty.

What a splendid city Prague is, and what a lovely bunch the Czechs are.

It feels like this is still very much a high-trust society. Twice I left my bag in public places – full of very nickable laptop, passport and other gubbins – and both times I came back to find my bag untouched, but safely put to one side. At night the city felt safe. It was very clean – I actually started looking out for litter and I couldn’t see any anywhere, whether in the centre or the suburbs, where I was staying. I always think litter – or lack thereof – is a good indicator of how much people really care about their surroundings, how loyal to and invested in their area they feel, and, indeed, how well brought up they are.

The Czechs were lovely: polite, hard-working, respectful, full of ambition and drive, and good looking.

The story is that Hitler went to university in Prague and loved the place that so much that, when the Nazis invaded in 1939, he ordered that the city should not be bombed but preserved. I heard the story last time I was here, and heard it again this time. But then I just fact-checked this story and apparently it is total rollocks - Hitler never went to university anywhere, nor did he visit Prague. Perhaps the city survived because the Czechs decided not put up any resistance, so the Nazis went unopposed, which meant they didn’t need to bomb anything.

In any case, the city is preserved and you can feel the history as you stroll about the stunning centre. It makes you cry for all the cities that did get flattened in WWII and the memories that disappeared with them.

The food was lovely. So was the beer. I even had a couple.

All in all, travel, board and lodging cost half of what they do in London, I’d say, at a guess.

Just as I did last time I was here, I came away enamoured with the place, feeling that I must come back soon.

As for the conference itself, BTC Prague, there were a few GenXers and Boomers – including my new friends Larry Lepard (check out his book), James Lavish (check out his fund) and George Bodine (check out his art) – as well as myself – but 85%+ of attendees were under 50, I’d say, with a large chunk under 30.

If you are young, starting out and wondering what to do, I would urge you to get involved with the Bitcoin movement. There are so many different ways to do so, depending on where your talents, skills or interests lie. You can be artist, scientist or journalist, engineer, entrepreneur, traveller or surfer-dude. It really doesn’t matter. You’ll find a path that suits you. It all feels so dynamic and full of opportunity. It’s brim full of doers. Everyone is so supportive. There is plenty of capital to invest. You can make quick progress.

Another thing to note: there are a lot of extremely clever people in this movement. Average IQ levels in Bitcoin are, I’ve little doubt, much higher than you typically find elsewhere.

Conversation, naturally, was dominated with talk of the bitcoin treasury companies, and the incredible price action we are seeing there. To use the baseball analogy, which innings of 9 are we in? I generally made the case that we are in perhaps 5 or 6, with Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) in 2020 having been innings one. Some of the old-timers - who, it has to be said, have missed this particular wave - dismissed it as the ICO or DEFI craze of this cycle. They may have a point.

But James Van Straten, the bright young mind behind the transformation of Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN), told me in no uncertain terms that, as far as the UK is concerned, ball one of innings one has only just be thrown. There is £1.2 trillion of capital in UK pensions and ISAs and, thanks to the FCAs anti-bitcoin rulings, several years of pent-up demand. We shall see.

What’s different between this and ICO/DeFi madness is that the bitcoin treasury companies are holding something real and strong, while the narrative is only just getting going.

People were very kind about my presentation, and I got asked to do a second one the following day, which I hurriedly wrote. I’ll share both with you as soon as I get the vids, but my main arguments were:

* With the changing nature of the global workforce, the rise of the gig and freelance worker, especially the digital nomad (billions of people will soon be on the move), demand for borderless money and portable wealth is inevitably going to grow.

* Save strong currencies; spend weak ones.

* By investing in bitcoin (the currency), you benefit from the cumulative, combined IQ of everyone involved in Bitcoin (the movement).

* With such extraordinary potential, the risk is not so much owning bitcoin as not owning it.

As you would expect from someone with my chequered past, I threw in lots of jokes as well.

Join this amazing movement.

But the main event was the Michael Saylor presentation on Saturday afternoon.

My goodness me, the 60-year-old former aerospace engineer has become a rock star. He was mobbed. He stood there in the entrance hall, patiently smiling for 90 minutes, with a circle of people around him 10-deep, all wanting selfies. The frenzy did not relent, and eventually his bodyguards had to usher him away so he could prepare for his presentation.

That same presentation will no doubt be doing the rounds on the internet over the next few days, and I urge you to watch it, but I will summarise his main points here.

Saylor, his usual intense, charismatic self, first observed just how far bitcoin has come over the past 12 months. Up about 70%, it has, yet again, outperformed gold, bonds, stocks and real estate. The White House has said it wants to make the US the bitcoin capital of the world. The new US administration is extremely pro-bitcoin – he went through the key players one by one. With the ETFs and increasing institutional adoption, bitcoin is altogether more normalised and legit.

He spoke about how he wished he had got involved in 2013, when he first heard about bitcoin, rather than in 2020, but he also made the point that bitcoin still only makes up less than 1% of global capital and that this share will inevitably grow. 99% of global capital doesn’t know about it yet and so, even buying now, you’re ahead of 99% of capital.

Then he began to speak about where this growing monetary network is going. Bitcoin will continue to outperform stocks, gold, bonds and real estate, as it inevitably grows to occupy a larger slice of the global capital pie. Twenty-one years from now, it’s going to be $21 million a coin, he said. There is, therefore, an opportunity to change the destiny of your family for generations to come. You create the future, he said.

To deal with the drawdowns and the crypto winters, be like a seasick sailor: keep your eyes on the horizon. On the bigger picture.

Saylor outlined several strategies to grow your bitcoin position and showed how rich each would make you in 21 years. The lowest-risk method is to dollar cost average (DCA) – buy a set amount each month and each year. But to increase your gains, use leverage. Use it wisely of course: keep interest payments low, fixed and long duration. Otherwise, you risk debt servitude and will end up with nothing.

The principle is to borrow weak currencies, which lose value, and use the money to buy the strongest currency of the lot, which will inevitably gain in value. The gains you make will be extraordinary.

I urge you to watch the presentation when it comes out, as he details the different strategies – and then shows the different outcomes.

Using:

* DCA

* Leverage

* DCA + leverage

* In the case of companies, issuing stock to buy bitcoin

* Issuing stock and using DCA + leverage

It will turn you into a total bitcoin head, I guarantee.

But that’s all for today.

I’ll be back mid-week with more commentary. I’m attending Swen Lorenz’s Weird Sh1t Investing Conference on Tuesday so there will no doubt be lots of good ideas in there.

I’ll also update you on my conversation the day before yesterday with Eric Semler, Chairman of bitcoin treasury company, Semlar Scientific (NASDQ:SMLR). Semlar has been eclipsed in performance by the (once) smallcap UK bitcoin treasury companies - Smarter Web Company (AQUIS:SWC), Consillium (AQIS:COIN) and Helium Ventures (AQUIS:HEV.PL), but it is lower risk and better value given it is trading at the actual value of its bitcoin holdings and looks set to enjoy a decent run should bitcoin catch a bid.

If you enjoyed this article, please like, share - all that stuff. It helps.

Until next time,

Dominic

PS Here’s this week’s commentary in case you missed it:

Disclaimer

I am not regulated by the FCA or any other body as a financial advisor, so anything you read above does not constitute regulated financial advice. It is an expression of opinion only. Tech stocks are famously risky, , so please do your own due diligence and if in any doubt consult with a financial advisor. Markets go down as well as up. I do not know your personal financial circumstances, only you do, but never speculate with money you can’t afford to lose.

I am travelling to the bitcoin conference in Prague this week - come say hi if you’re there - so you are likely to get a lot of bitcoin-related content over the next fortnight, as I re-indoctrinate myself.

Indeed, we are talking bitcoin and gold today — and we start with this.

The Bitcoin Treasury Boom

UK-listed Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN), as flagged last Sunday, is jumping on the bitcoin treasury bandwagon. It has risen over 600% in the 10 days since I covered it. It was 6p. Now it's over 40p.

Its market cap it £135 million. It only owns 25 bitcoins. (Worth around £2 million).

Nuts. But there you go.

I have taken my original stake off the table. I’ll let the rest run, as I think it will. Its recently announced placement was four times oversubscribed.

Bitcoin treasury companies are the new sh1tcoins. There will soon be more of them than there are sh1tcoins, the way things are going. It will probably all end in tears - for which we will have the FCA to thank, because it has outlawed investors from buying bitcoin ETFs and the like - but, while the music is playing, we dance.

The other possibility, of course, is that productive companies follow the zombie company lead, at which point the entire corporate financial model changes. Every company becoms a bitcoin treasury company. I actually think there’s a good chance of this happening, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

But let me just remind you — and myself — that owning a bitcoin treasury company is not the same as owning bitcoin. It’s a speculation, a substitute, but it’s not the same.

(BTW I bought some bitcoin with Revolut the other day, and I found the process very simple - though I quickly sent the money to another, safer wallet. Strike and CoinCorner are other UK options.)

The non-US bitcoin treasury plays are doing better than the US, which is interesting. Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Semler (NASDAQ:SMLR), for example, are not moving. (They will if bitcoin breaks to new highs above $110,000, as it is trying to do, but for now it’s all about the UK and Japan, and the dumb regulations that have created this situation).

Gold Is Now Number Two

This week has seen something of a landmark development, meanwhile. Gold has overtaken the euro to become the second-most held asset by central banks. 20% of central bank reserves are now held in gold, against 16% in euros.

Also of considerable note — and largely unreported — US dollar holdings have fallen below 50% for the first time in almost 30 years. They now sit at 46%.

De-dollarisation is happening, folks, right in front of our eyes.

If you are enjoying this post, please like it, share it and all that stuff. Thank you.

This 20% gold figure compares with just 10% ten years ago. I’ve little doubt this will double again over the next 10 years - and we’ll be at 40%.

Even ECB Chief Lizard, Christine Lagarde, has noticed. “The accumulation of gold by central banks continued at a record pace,” she says. “Some countries have been actively exploring alternatives to traditional cross-border payment systems.”

That last sentence is telling. It further confirms what we all knew was happening. It’s not just as a store of value that the US dollar’s central role is subsiding, but as a medium of exchange.

Gold is reclaiming its historical role as a core international holding. Make sure you own some.

If you are buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times, the dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.

In the same press release Lagarde says:

“Offering solutions for settling wholesale financial transactions recorded on distributed ledger technology platforms in central bank money will increase the efficiency of European financial markets and the global appeal of the euro.”

That’s reptilian speak for “the euro CBDC is coming soon”. The EU CBDC Beast could begin as soon as this year. It will be rolled out first at the institutional level. Then it will be forced on the minions (which I don’t think will work, by the way, for reasons explained [here] — but that doesn’t mean they won’t try).

Turning to what might prove the Big Kahuna.

The Real Crisis: Government Spending Can’t Stop

We have another rapidly developing plotline, and this announcement was widely overlooked by the press - probably on government orders, but perhaps because, as Occam’s Razor would have it, they’re thick.

It is, in my view, a highly significant development, and is going to open the door to a ton of money-printing.

I have a friend — we’ll call him Steve. Steve’s a comedian — a very good one. He started around the same time as me, maybe a bit later.

Back in the day, we all thought Steve was going to be a huge star. If there were any justice in the world, he would have been. But there isn’t. We all know that. Steve ended up one of those many jobbing, circuit comedians, with a brilliant act — good enough to storm pretty much any room under any circumstances — but who never seemed to get beyond the circuit. There are plenty of unknown, but brilliant acts like Steve, believe me.

Maybe he didn’t have the right mindset — I don’t know. If you want my opinion, I think he over-thought things. But what do I know?

Steve was always interested in investing and, in his spare time (comedians have plenty of that) he began speculating with his earnings. Steve liked to do things properly, and investing was no different. He studied hard, researched, read loads, watched videos, listened to podcasts, scrutinised company reports and accounts, evaluated the fundamentals. He did everything you’re supposed to do.

It didn’t work out. Steve lost money. Consistently. Bad choices dogged him.

As Covid took hold in 2020, Steve took stock of his 20 years on the circuit. Where was he was in life? What he had achieved?

Just as he never broke out of the circuit, Steve had never broken into the higher tax bracket either. Despite scrupulous and honest accounting, he had never once made it beyond the basic band. He had no property — which, for a man closing in on 50, was unimpressive. He had very little in the way of savings, even though he was frugal. No pension. The comedy circuit was already in recession. Now Covid had shut it down. Things were looking bleak.

Then Steve started watching Michael Saylor videos.

Michael Saylor is the billionaire genius Chairman of Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) who, amidst all the money printing during Covid, was trying to protect his corporate treasury from erosion by inflation. This led him to bitcoin, which he embraced. He became one of its most articulate proponents, while his company — which had been all but dormant, share-price-wise, for 20 years — suddenly took off like a rocket. He gave birth to the bitcoin treasury model that is becoming so widespread today.

Everything Saylor said made sense to Steve. Not only that — it chimed with him. Bitcoin is stored energy. Investing in bitcoin is like buying Apple, Amazon, Google, or Facebook a decade ago. They’re all dominant technology networks, so destined to grow. The more you obsess over timing the market, the more mistakes you make. The best strategy is to buy bitcoin and wait. It will have a market cap in the multi-trillions. All that stuff.

Steve had known about bitcoin for many years. But he never invested. He bought shares in Lloyds instead.

He changed tack. He decided he was going to do for himself what Saylor had done for Strategy.

He began buying bitcoin with any spare cash he had. In his ISA, he bought Strategy.He started bitcoin wallets for his nephews, nieces, and godchildren and bought them small amounts of bitcoin on their birthdays and at Christmas.

Something unlikely happened: Steve’s investments started going up.

By now he was obsessing over Michael Saylor videos. Watching and rewatching them. Finding old interviews and presentations and marvelling at the consistency of message — and Saylor’s extraordinary gift for spotting and riding technological trends.

“There’s not a single interview that man has done that I haven’t watched,” Steve told me the other day.

Steve sold every stock he owned. He couldn’t buy bitcoin through his broker — thanks, FCA — so he bought Strategy instead, then other bitcoin treasury companies, last year, including the amazing Metaplanet.

Meanwhile, everything he earned he sent straight to an exchange and converted to bitcoin. Only the bare essentials he needed to cover that month’s bills did he keep in fiat. Steve turned his entire personal operation into a bitcoin treasury.

What’s more, he didn’t told anyone he’d done this. Except with me — because he knows I know and love bitcoin.

He doesn’t mind when bitcoin sells off — it just means he can buy more on the cheap. He thinks it is inevitable — because of its superior technology — that bitcoin becomes the world’s dominant money system. That individuals, corporations and countries will store their capital in bitcoin, rather than fiat, so they do not suffer erosion by inflation (which is inevitable, because governments everywhere are incapable of reining in their spending — even with Elon Musk in charge).

He just keeps on accumulating, keeps on watching Saylor vids, and keeps on keeping his head down.

There are lots of people like Steve. I read about them every day. I just met a load out here at Freedom Fest in California.

I’m headed to BTC Prague next week. I know I’ll meet a load more there. (If you’re in Prague, by the way, come say hi. And if you’re thinking of going, you can get 10% off tickets using code FRISBY)

I’ve said it before and I say it again, if you save in strong currencies, and spend in weak ones, you will change your social status — you don’t have to earn a lot of money to do that

I saw Steve the other day. I’ve never seen him happier (except after he’s just stormed a gig). Guess what? He’s now in a position, just four years later, where he can buy a house. That’s what his girlfriend wants him to do. How about that for a transformation.

You really should subscribe to this amazing publication.

Only problem is: that would mean selling some of his bitcoin.

If only there were vehicles by which you could borrow against your bitcoin … That’s the next chapter in this extraordinary story: borrow against your bitcoin, spend in fiat, keep the asset.

Trouble is, if you’re in the UK — you won’t be able to. Because FCA

Thanks very much for reading this. If you enjoyed it, please like, share - all that stuff - it helps.

Until next time,

Dominic

PS Don’t forget my brilliant book about bitcoin, if you want to learn more about the space. I hear the audiobook is very good indeed.