The Pomp Letter

To investors,

Howard Lutnick, the new Secretary of Commerce, was on television last night discussing the administration’s goal of eliminating federal income tax. This is the type of big, bold thinking that can change the direction of a country.

Here is the clip:

It is important to understand what appears to be the playbook. DOGE is focused on cutting $2 trillion from the government budget. That would eliminate the current annual deficit and bring us very close to a balanced budget. The tariffs being levied would increase the government’s revenue, combined with Lutnick’s plan to create an additional $1 trillion of revenue from the government’s balance sheet, would lead to an annual surplus.

As soon as you get to a surplus, you can start to lower the tax rate of American citizens. I don’t see a world where the tax rate goes to 0% overnight, but we could see a slow, steady reduction over the next four years. We saw a reduction from 39.6% to 37% in 2018, which was obviously well received by Americans.

The most interesting part of this entire situation is that I don’t remember Trump or his team promising a balanced budget on the campaign trail. I don’t think they ever mentioned abolishing the federal income tax either. In fact, I spoke on numerous podcasts about my disappointment that neither major party candidate was even pretending they wanted to balance the budget.

But here we are.

The ramifications of this achievement would be profound. The simple increase in money available to hard-working families would be obvious, but you could see second order effects on stock prices (higher!), bitcoin (higher!), real estate (higher!), money market funds (higher!), etc.

According to prediction market Kalshi, the market is putting a 54% chance on Trump being able to reduce the national debt. On one hand, that is a much higher number than you would expect, but it is still far away from a near certainty.

Just as I continue to say the single most important thing in bitcoin is whether the United States creates a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, I believe the most important thing for the long-term status of the US economy is whether the federal income tax is significantly reduced or not.

This single number represents the success or failure of so many other things — tariff program, External Revenue Service, national debt, interest rates, etc.

If I had to guess right now, we will not see federal income tax reduced to 0%. Instead, I could see a world where we get the rate reduced under 30% and long-term capital gains tax is dropped to 15%. These two reductions would increase investments in America and serve as a boom to the US economy.

It is a big, bold idea. But we need these types of ideas to get back on track. I don’t care who is in the White House — I want to see Americans with more money in their pocket and a country that is accelerating towards a bright future.

Hopefully that is what we are going to get. Have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

This Bitcoin Bull Run Is Just Getting Started Says Abra CEO

Bill Barhydt is the Founder & CEO of Abra.

In this conversation we talk about bitcoin, regulation tailwinds, how we think about DeFi for institutions, memecoins, stablecoins, and what Bill is excited about in the future.

Enjoy!

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* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

The widely quoted annual deficit number is $2 trillion. In layman terms, the United States spends $2 trillion more than we pull in as revenue. That is obviously not good.

But we got even worse news recently.

The US government is not running a $2 trillion deficit. They are actually running a ~ $2.5 trillion deficit based on the annual run rate from the first four months of the 2025 fiscal year.

Geiger Capital points out “the first four months of FY 2025 produced a deficit of $838 Billion. That’s $306 Billion more than the deficit recorded in the same period last fiscal year. We’re running a $2.5 TRILLION annual deficit.”

The most shocking aspect of these numbers is not the nominal values, but rather the rate of growth. It is unsustainable if our annual deficit is growing 25% year-over-year or more.

This explains why we are adding approximately $1 trillion to the national debt every 100 days — insane!

Thankfully, we have the Department of Government Efficiency working around the clock to stop wasteful government spending. Here are the various savings DOGE was able to create for the American taxpayer yesterday:

* The Department of Agriculture terminated 18 contracts for a total of ~$9 million.

* The Department of Education terminated 29 DEI training grants totaling $101 million.

* The Department Of Education terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million.

This means that the agency tasked with eliminating government waste was able to stop ~ $1 billion of spending in the last 24 hours. These $1 billion days are a great start, but we are going to need even larger cuts to get to a balanced budget.

But lets stick with the national debt for a second — we know the higher the number goes, the worse off Americans are. But there is a weird solution in bitcoin that has presented itself over the last 15 years.

Before you roll your eyes, hear me out for a second.

We know inflation is bad for people who hold dollars. So what do smart people do? They exchange their cash for investment assets. Now inflation works for the smart people, rather than working against them.

The same is true of bitcoin and the debt. Porter Stansberry said it best on Marty Bent’s podcast recently:

“Their debt is your problem until you own bitcoin. The moment you own bitcoin, their debt is your greatest asset.”

Plenty of people understand this phenomenon. Historically, they have not held bitcoin though. Gold has been a winning asset for these investors. As gold hits a new all-time high and nears the magical $3,000 price level, we can see that the precious metal has benefitted significantly from the insane monetary policy and debt explosion over the last 5 or 6 years.

Here is inflation-adjusted gold prices since the early 1970s:

And you want to know the craziest part? The gold price is not being driven by American capital allocators. Instead, the price is being driven by Asian investors. You can see here the recent rise of gold trading volumes in China as one example:

The incumbent investors want gold, but the new generation wants bitcoin. You can see bitcoin is quickly closing in on gold’s market share. A great prompt to think about for your portfolio is whether you think bitcoin will continue to make up ground on gold or if you believe gold is poised to turnaround this trend?

You can probably guess where I stand on this. And now that the national debt is actually growing faster than we previously thought, we can hope DOGE is successful while simultaneously protecting ourselves with a little bitcoin.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

Today’s letter is brought to you by Bitcoin Investor Week!

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Paxos CEO Chad Cascarilla Explains Why Bitcoin & Stablecoins Will Both Continue To Win Together

Chad Cascarilla is the CEO & Co-Founder at Paxos, a regulated blockchain infrastructure provider and stablecoin issuer. Visit Paxos (https://www.paxos.com/). Chad is also one of the earliest investors in bitcoin.

n this conversation we talk about the early days of bitcoin, the rise of ethereum and other blockchains, the importance of stablecoins, tokenization, helping onboard enterprises, where we are going, and the mission of Paxos.

Enjoy!

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* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

The crypto industry has become essential to national security. That is one of my big takeaways from the first press conference held by Crypto and AI Czar David Sacks.

Most people are focused on the strategic bitcoin reserve, which I believe will happen in 2025, but that is not the most interesting part of Sacks’ focus from my perspective. The bitcoin reserve will help the United States over the long-term. That is obviously important.

However, we have short-term issues we need to address too.

One of the big issues is demand for US treasuries. China and Japan used to be 22% of treasury demand, but they have recently fallen as low as 7% of the demand. This is important to watch because nation states and their central banks tend to be price insensitive buyers.

State Street produced a research report in 2024 that highlighted the issue:

“Growing US federal budget deficits and higher refinancing costs are bringing renewed attention to the US Treasury market. Over the next decade, an estimated US$2 trillion of net issuance is expected annually. This issuance will take place in a market environment quite different from that of the 2010s, where price-insensitive buyers, such as the US Federal Reserve (Fed) and foreign central banks, were the sources of increased demand. This landscape has shifted with the end of quantitative easing (QE) and reduced foreign reserve accumulation. By simple arithmetic, price-sensitive buyers, such as US households and corporates, are expected to account for a growing share of Treasury investors.”

Thankfully, we are watching a net new buyer of treasuries show up right when the United States needs them the most — stablecoin issuers.

Stablecoin issuers are already a top 20 holder of US treasuries collectively. This trend is accelerating in recent years, so there is a strong argument that stablecoin issuers will be a top 10 holder in short order.

Don’t take my word for it though. David Sacks said he believes stablecoins could ensure US dollar dominance globally, increase the use of US dollars as the global reserve currency, and create trillions of dollars in demand for US treasuries.

Given the potential positive impact from stablecoins, it makes sense that lawmakers are focusing their time and effort on creating stablecoin frameworks to accelerate that aspect of crypto.

This brings me to the national security component of crypto. It is essential that stablecoins continue to become popular. The demand for US treasuries depends on it.

Bitcoin is going to serve the exact role that it was created for — a perfect store of value to protect economic value over the long term.

But stablecoins are a short-term solution to a big problem on the horizon for the United States. Dare I say stablecoins are too big to fail now. The United States has to play ball, so they are taking the right steps to embrace the industry rather than fight it.

Issuing stablecoins will be a great business. Having stablecoins buy your treasuries will be a great transaction. And stablecoins will improve the financial experience for billions of people globally.

Bitcoin is for saving, stablecoins are for spending.

A digital savings account and a digital checking account. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

How To Reduce Taxes When Buying or Selling Bitcoin

Chris Kline is the Co-Founder & COO of Bitcoin IRA.

In this conversation we talk about the bitcoin strategic reserve, what Trump administration could do for bitcoin, Czech central bank consider holding bitcoin as reserve asset, how many other countries are getting into the game, repeal of SB121, banks holding bitcoin, and putting bitcoin in their your retirement account.

Checkout Bitcoin IRA by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Podcast Sponsors

* Ledger - Ledger secures 20% of the world’s digital assets. Their latest devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, feature secure touchscreens for safer, easier crypto management.

* Franzy - Ready to leave the 9-to-5, start a side hustle, or expand your portfolio? Franzy is your gateway to franchise ownership—research, compare, and fund the right opportunity with confidence and transparency.

* Bitwise - America’s largest crypto index fund manager and the only Bitcoin ETF issuer that publishes its wallet address plus donates 10% of profits to open source developers. Learn more at BitwisePomp.com

* BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $500 in rewards.

* Bitdeer - A global technology company focused on Bitcoin mining, ASIC development and HPC for AI, backed by advanced R&D and a massive 2.5 GW global power portfolio.

* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

* BitcoinOS - The operating system for bitcoin applications powered by zero-knowledge technology. Check out @BTC_OS on twitter to learn more.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise of implementing tariffs on Canada and Mexico over the weekend. This comes after majority of the country voted for Trump to assume office and implement his America First strategy.

Tariffs, especially the blanket tariffs that were implemented in the last 48 hours, are one of the most controversial parts of the America First strategy. Most market participants critique the tariff decision as being negative for the US consumer, while also being ineffective in driving the other policy goals.

I know these critiques well because I believed this mainstream narrative until a few weeks ago. Given my increasing focus on reading source material and spending the time and energy to come to my own conclusions, I went down a deep rabbit hole to better understand tariffs, their history, the policy goals, results in modern society, and the impact on prices, domestic manufacturing, and national security.

What I discovered surprised me. The information ran counter to almost everything I had been told about tariffs. The overwhelming consensus opinion from economists and media outlets previously seemed like common sense, but now it appears to be more similar to state talking points that could be compared to “inflation is transitory.”

I have completely changed my mind on tariffs, so I thought it would be important to share what I learned and how I think about these economic tools now.

Tariff Experiment

In order to understand the current situation, it is important for us to get context on what I believe to be happening. My best guess is that Trump learned from his experiment during his first term on how to use tariffs as a lever to drive down income tax without creating inflation and simultaneously increasing domestic manufacturing and jobs.

Now Trump is back in office with a mandate and he is going to transition from the Tariff Experiment (2017-2020) to the Tariff Era (2025 and beyond).

As a reminder, President Trump implemented tariffs during his first term against solar panels and washing machines (January 2018), steel and aluminum (March 2018), and Chinese goods (four separate tariffs from March to September 2018).

During the same time period, Trump dropped the federal income tax from 39.6% to 37%. A good summary of the Tariff Experiment is that the President was able to increase tariffs, drop federal income tax, avoid inflation, and strengthen American manufacturing.

But before we dig deeper into what happened in 2017/2018, or why the mainstream narrative around tariffs is highly inaccurate, we have to talk about why tariffs are one of the longest standing American traditions.

Tariff History

The United States used to have no federal income tax and the country survived almost exclusively through tariff revenue. George Washington signed tariffs into law as the second bill of his administration as the first President of the United States. A year later, the US Revenue Cutter Service (which later became the US Coast Guard) was created to collect the 5% tariff on all imports to the country.

Tariffs continued to be the main source of government revenue for about 70 years. These tariffs also protected American industries from foreign competition and ensured America was able to become self-sufficient, which was considered a national security issue at the time.

However, as you can see in the chart below, we went from more than 90% of US government revenue via tariffs in 1850 to almost 0% of government revenue via tariffs by 1950. It took about a century to destroy one of America’s greatest advantages.

Tariffs are widely credited as an essential tool for the success of the Industrial Revolution, which created the American economy we know today — the greatest economy ever constructed by a nation state in human history.

“Tariffs have historically served a key role in the trade policy of the United States. Their purpose was to generate revenue for the federal government and to allow for import substitution industrialization (industrialization of a nation by replacing imports with domestic production) by acting as a protective barrier around infant industries. They also aimed to reduce the trade deficit and the pressure of foreign competition. Tariffs were one of the pillars of the American System that allowed the rapid development and industrialization of the United States.

The United States pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade.”

Historical figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt were all outspoken supporters of tariffs as a necessary tool for America to thrive. The famous Lincoln quote on tariffs is “Give us a protective tariff, and we shall have the greatest nation on earth.”

Historical Takeaway

The main takeaway from a historical perspective is that America was built on tariffs. They created government revenue without having to tax US citizens with a federal income tax and they created an attractive environment so US entrepreneurs could create new domestic industries with American workers.

This brings us to modern society.

We have infrequent use of tariffs today and instead derive an inordinate amount of government revenue from income taxes. American companies and industries are also subjected to global competition where foreign countries and companies often take advantage of the American consumer.

So Trump’s big idea is to bring back the tariffs that made America the greatest economy in the world. He wants to create an advantageous operating environment for US companies, drive government revenue, and leverage tariffs as a negotiating tool to get foreign nations to act in America’s best interest.

But this idea has a plethora of critics. The main issues that people claim about tariffs are:

* Tariffs lead to higher prices for American consumers.

* Tariffs and the related higher prices lead to inflation.

* Tariffs do not create American jobs.

The beauty of our current situation is that we don’t have to go back hundreds of years to see how tariffs would play out in the modern economy. We can study the real world experiment that Trump ran during his first term.

Let’s take a look at the main products that were tariffed in 2018 — solar panels, washing machines, and steel.

Solar Panels

We can start with solar panels. The original tariff was a 30% tax on foreign solar panels and modules imported into the United States. The tariff decreased by 5% each year until it bottomed out at 15%.

So what happened to solar panels? According to the critics, solar panel prices should have gone up, right? Well, the exact opposite happened. Domestic solar panel prices continued to fall in price as they had been for years before the tariffs.

We also saw a continued increase in the domestic manufacturing of American solar panels after the tariffs were implemented.

And American consumers never slowed down their appetite for solar installations. The US solar industry, regardless of where the products come from, has seen a 26% average annual growth rate over the last decade.

This is an important example because it shows the critics of tariffs were disproven when it comes to solar panels. Not only did the price of solar continue to drop, but American manufacturing of the product skyrocketed in the years following the tariff (solar panel production was increasing from 2017-2021 and then the IRA incentive program for solar was implemented which poured gas on the demand fire).

The solar tariff program worked so well that Joe Biden doubled the tariff from 25% to 50% last year in 2024 before he left office.

Now there will be people who claim that solar panels are an exception to the rule. They had a structural advantage because of the deflationary nature of technology combined with a secular tailwind of demand, so let’s move on to the next example of washing machines.

Washing Machines

President Trump implemented a tariff on imported washing machines in January 2018. The tax ranged from 20-50% depending on a variety of details. This was a big deal because washing machines were the most pure consumer good that Trump initially taxed, so critics of the tariff believed it would be the most obvious example of how bad the tariffs were.

If you fast forward to today, washing machine prices are lower now than they were pre-tariff implementation. But critics will use this chart below to screech that tariffs actually increased the price of washer machines until the tariffs were removed at the start of 2024.

But don’t be fooled by the beautiful colors and twisted data. You can see that washing machine prices jumped in the first 90 days after the tariffs were announced, but then the price fell aggressively for the next 2 years. Washing machine prices were lower at the start of 2020 than they were pre-tariff. This is a narrative violation.

Obviously the pandemic broke most supply chains and the insane monetary policy from the Federal Reserve drove inflation over 9%. Here is the funny thing — not only were washing machine prices falling with decreasing inflation growth before the tariffs expired, but washing machine prices have actually risen less than consumer inflation rate since the tariffs were implemented.

So the idea that tariffs drove any sustainable price increase in washing machines is objectively false. In fact, washing machines became cheaper than pre-tariff prices before the pandemic hit.

If that was not good enough, two Korean manufacturers of washing machines opened manufacturing facilities in the United States in response to the tariffs. These facilities created at least 2,000 new American jobs. So the tariffs not only had no sustainable impact on prices, but they also lured investment in American manufacturing and created American jobs.

But maybe you don’t like the solar panel and washing machine examples. Don’t worry, I have another example — US steel.

Steel

Trump implemented a 25% tariff on steel imports in March 2018. His reasoning was related to national security, along with a desire to get US steel mills operating at 80% capacity or higher.

Naturally, the critics of tariffs would argue that steel prices should have increased by 25% or more post-tariff, but as you can see in this chart — steel prices increased through the summer (steel prices had already been skyrocketing pre-tariff too) and then began falling substantially. US steel prices eventually fell to price levels much lower than pre-tariff prices.

Why did the price of US steel decrease? Domestic manufacturing of steel increased by nearly 10% for the 2 years post-tariffs.

"The USGS data show that Trump's tariffs may have helped goose domestic steel production in the first few years after they were implemented. Production rose to 86.6 million metric tons in 2018 and 87.8 million metric tons in 2019, before cratering in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Production bounced back in 2021, as American steel mills produced 85.8 million metric tons of raw steel that year."

This means the 2018 tariffs worked — US manufacturing of steel increased and US steel prices dropped lower.

Obviously, the pandemic created significant issues for manufacturing and industrial companies, but US steel prices still sit right now at nearly the same level as they were pre-tariff. Most importantly, steel prices have not kept up with consumer inflation since 2018.

So now you have three concrete examples from the 2018 tariffs that show the critics were wrong. The tariffs led to lower prices, increased American manufacturing, more government revenue, and the creation of American jobs. Also, US inflation (CPI) fell from 2.1% in January 2018 to 1.6% in January 2019, so the tariffs didn’t lead to higher inflation either.

No wonder Trump is trying to expand his experiment and create a new Tariff Era.

American Production of Goods

This brings me to the next critique that I hear — America can’t make their own goods.

This is obviously not true, but I will entertain the idea as a way to educate those who believe the absurdity.

The United States is the largest producer of lumber. We are leaders in corn, soybeans, dairy, beef and chicken production. We produce 12% of the global supply of semiconductors and the US is one of the largest oil and natural gas producers in the world.

We are the largest manufacturer of aircraft and we remain dominant in pharmaceutical production. The US leads in software production and exports an insane amount of technology innovation globally. We also are very large producers of industrial chemicals and fertilizers.

It is essential that you stop blindly believing the mainstream narratives. The United States can achieve anything we want as long as political leadership empowers our entrepreneurs to build solutions to our problems.

And you can see that US manufacturing is just getting started — private investment in US manufacturing capabilities has exploded in recent years.

Potential Risks

As I stated in the beginning, I have completely changed my mind on tariffs. I believe them to be a great tool for the United States to increase revenue, protect American industries, and incentivize other countries to act in our best interest.

I don’t believe that most of the mainstream narratives are correct. That doesn’t mean tariffs come with no risks though. For example, consumers will pay a higher price for tariffed goods in the first 3-6 months while the market works out the changing demand patterns to shift towards domestically produced goods.

There could be a sustained price increase in products where the United States has no manufacturing capability. You could also see reduced economic growth if American manufacturing of the tariffed goods does not increase to make up for the added friction in the market. We saw steel, washing machines, and solar panels successfully make the transition, but it does not mean every product will be able to do this.

If you get sustained higher prices, you could see inflation stick around longer than desired. But over the long run inflation will dissipate — Norway has a 25% VAT on all imported goods and their inflation rate is under 2% currently (inflation is about the rate of change, not the nominal prices of a good, so inflation is most likely to surface when tariffs are first introduced).

And we already see Canada retaliating against the US with their own tariffs. Thankfully, the United States is much less reliant on Canada and Mexico than they are reliant on us.

The Ace in our Back Pocket

I want to highlight a part of the analysis that almost no one is including from what I have seen. Tariffs don’t operate in a silo. They are part of the complex economic machine. You have to understand the whole system in order to get a sense of how one input will impact various outputs.

A good example of this is the work that the Department of Government Efficiency is doing. Elon Musk recently explained how the United States could reach 0% inflation:

“Reducing the federal deficit from $2T to $1T in FY2026 requires cutting an average of ~$4B/day in projected 2026 spending from now to Sept 30.

That would still result in a ~$1T deficit, but economic growth should be able to match that number, which would mean no inflation in 2026. Super big deal.”

Musk then followed up with a tweet on Saturday saying “I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach the $4B/day FY2026 reduction this weekend.” So the entire tariff conversation is happening with a backdrop of drastic reduction in government spending, including a potential 0% inflation environment.

This gives Trump even more license to exert America’s leadership position on the global stage. Tariff the countries who are taking advantage of us. Protect American industries and create American jobs. Increase government revenue.

And as Milton Friedman said, “inflation is made in Washington,” so the risk of inflation is coming off the table as DOGE slashes the bureaucratic waste that existed for decades.

Conclusion

Tariffs are a powerful tool. They can incentivize desired behaviors and punish undesired behaviors. The mainstream narrative is full of misinformation and fear-mongering. It is always important to read source material, so you can think for yourself.

It was reported this morning that almost half of Canadian companies surveyed “plan to shift more investments and operations to the U.S. to mitigate potential tariffs and maintain market access.” As I have tried to point out in this letter, America’s tariffs will create a black hole that will suck investment dollars and business operations into the United States. If a business does not want to pay the tariffs, they can come build their products in America. If a consumer does not want to pay higher prices for tariffed goods, they can buy American made products.

Tariffs work and the United States is about to go on a big winning streak.

I hope this overview of tariffs has been helpful. I specifically wanted everyone to understand that the 2018 tariffs proved majority of the market does not understand how these economic tools impact prices, jobs, and consumers. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you sit on (I am an independent), we should all be hoping for the success of the United States of America.

Have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

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To investors,

The stock market sell-off yesterday has everyone predicting a larger crash on the horizon. But as we have discussed in the past, the more people talk about an incoming market crash, the less likely the crash will occur.

Let’s play a hypothetical game though — what if a market crash did occur right now?

Creative Planning CEO Peter Mallouk shared this chart to show “bear markets pale in comparison to bull markets, both in market movement and duration. Remember this chart during the next - and inevitable - correction or bear market.”

The secret to handling bear markets is to simply keep buying great assets that you can hold for a long time. Young people have the greatest advantage because of the long period of time they will continue investing in markets for, but the rule of thumb applies to everyone.

You make more in bull markets than you lose in bear markets.

We must have a grasp of the accurate data in order to better understand this concept. Discipline Funds Founder Cullen Roche recently analyzed the nominal and real stock market returns over the last 125 years. Here is what he found:

* US Stocks Real: 6.65% per year

* US Stocks Nominal: 9.85% per year

This data suggests that most investors are actually capturing only 2/3rds of the financial return they previously thought they were capturing. As Roche eloquently put it, “Inflation. The biggest fee of all them all. By a mile.”

So lets go back to the events yesterday. We saw approximately $1.5 trillion erased from the US stock market. That is an amount comparable to the entire GDP of Spain.

People are worried. But everyone is forgetting the most important development in financial markets — Donald Trump is back in the White House.

He measures the success of the US economy through the price appreciation of the stock market (and increasingly the bitcoin price). It would be devastating to him if the stock market crashed throughout his administration. This is why you have seen him advocating for lower interest rates, along with spending so much time with corporate leaders.

Donald Trump wants to command the stock market to go higher.

And given he is the most powerful man on the planet, and the leader of the free world, I wouldn’t bet against him. Take the comments Trump made last night about Deepseek and the market response:

We are locked in a global competition for AI supremacy. The United States has the talent, capital, and regulatory environment to win. If we accomplish what we are capable of, there should be an explosion of economic activity and stocks will go much, much higher.

Bears sound smart in the short-term, but bulls make money in the long-run. A great example of this is Nassim Taleb. He was screeching in Miami yesterday about a large market crash on the horizon. For a guy who wrote a book titled Skin in the Game, you would expect Taleb to have material skin in the game.

Of course, it doesn’t appear that he does. Taleb and the market crash predictors are looking for headlines and attention. Thankfully, the stock market and bitcoin don’t care. They will continue to go up as the United States adds $1 trillion to the national debt every 100 days.

Betting against the American economy during a golden age of innovation has never played out well. There is no reason to believe it will work this time either.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

Anthony & John Pompliano Discuss The Deepseek Market Crash

John Pompliano and Anthony Pompliano discuss bitcoin, why the price is crashing, why you shouldn’t care, the future outlook for bitcoin, Donald Trump tariff threats, DeepSeek, why investors are scared, and why America needs to compete.

Enjoy!

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* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

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* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadot is a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s letter is brought to you by Bitcoin Investor Week!

I am hosting Bitcoin Investor Week in New York City from February 24-28th. It is the largest annual meeting for sophisticated Wall Street investors who are interested in bitcoin.

Speakers include Cathie Wood, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Novogratz, Senator Cynthia Lummis, Jan van Eck, Anthony Scaramucci, Jack Mallers, Natalie Brunell, and many more.

This is an entire week of high-quality conversations with the top people across traditional finance and bitcoin. The venues are incredible. The planned events will be incredibly fun. And I promise you will learn something, along with make important connections, if you attend this year.

This will be one of the highest quality bitcoin conferences of the year. See you there!

To investors,

A new artificial intelligence model out of China is creating uncertainty and volatility in the market this morning. Deepseek, which was supposedly developed by a startup with ~ 200 employees, has proven to be more effective than OpenAI’s ChatGPT in a number of tests.

The mobile app associated with Deepseek is currently sitting at #1 in the charts in the United States and China. Usually a launch that gains momentum like this so quickly is celebrated, so why is the market freaking out?

The short answer is because majority of investors don’t understand how technology and financial markets are related.

In order to understand the miscalculation, we must first understand what the average investor believes right now. They have seen a new Chinese model published that was reportedly created for under $6 million and the LLM has been open-sourced for anyone to use. This immediately begs the question of why American companies have spent so much money to build inferior models, along with creating a narrative that the US may be losing the competition for AI supremacy.

But here is the thing — you can’t believe anything coming out of China right now. The government has a track record of misleading financial markets on various metrics and Chinese companies have been caught making fraudulent claims over and over again.

I have no idea how much money it cost to build Deepseek. But it feels odd that OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, xAI, and many others have raised billions of dollars each and then a random startup claims they built something better for less than 1% of the capital investment. Could it be possible? Sure. Is it probable? Absolutely not.

But lets assume that Deepseek actually pulled this off for $6 million. The next question is whether investors should be excited or scared — I feel strongly that a better, cheaper model available to anyone in the world should be a net positive for society. You are going to hear everyone talking about Jevan’s paradox in the coming days. The idea states an increase in efficiency in resource use will generate an increase in resource consumption rather than a decrease. (Even Microsoft’s Satya Nadella tweeted it already!)

More companies are able to leverage the technology to create economic activity and drive GDP growth. Individuals should be able to save time and become more effective at their jobs. And more problems will be solved. So Deepseek’s innovation will drive more use of AI, rather than less.

This is all positive on a macro basis.

The fear starts to come into investors’ minds when they wonder if they have bet on the wrong companies. Many of the investors I know couldn’t explain the intricacies of artificial intelligence. They throw around buzz words and hope no one digs below surface level in their conversation. Instead of allocating capital based on technical understanding, most of these individuals and institutions are merely momentum investing.

NVIDIA has gone up a lot, so they buy the stock because odds are it will continue going up. Same with a variety of other companies. The funny thing is that momentum investing in growth stocks is a good strategy most of the time. However, it can be brutal to go through the few times that momentum investing is the wrong strategy.

So ask yourself — why are investors selling NVIDIA because a better model came out? Shouldn’t NVIDIA investors be excited that AI will become more prevalent and NVIDIA’s products will be used more often?

The concern this morning is Deepseek claims they built the new model using inferior chips to what many American companies have access to. This is supposed to make people bearish on NVIDIA, but instead I think people should be more bullish since NVIDIA’s competitive advantage is so obvious. For example, if Deepseek could do this with inferior chips, imagine what they could do with NVIDIA products?

This brings me to how I see the market today. First, AI models are largely thought to be infrastructure but I don’t agree with that framing. I see them more as cars. All cars have four wheels and an engine, but they come in a variety of wrappers. Some people like fast cars and some like big cars. Some people like red cars and others like black. Some people like Ferrari and others like Tesla. There is something different for everyone.

Models are similar in that it will not be a winner-take-all market. There will be different models for different use cases. It makes no sense to invest capital in a single model hoping it is the one model to rule them all. That is not how technology works.

Next, I am a firm believer that investing in companies that USE artificial intelligence, rather than MAKE artificial intelligence will be the right way to play this market. There may be one or two model producers that accrue significant value, but I am not trying to pick the one needle in a haystack. I simply want to have above average returns across the sector. As Howard Marks points out, if you try to be the top performer every year, then you have to be willing to be the bottom performer when you are wrong.

I am spending a lot of time looking for companies that are using AI to drive down expenses and increase productivity. One metric that I continue to evaluate is revenue per employee. I don’t want to merely see a static measurement, but instead I want to see this number improving over time. If a company starts with $500,000 of revenue per employee and two years later it has $1.2 million in revenue per employee, this is a company that I would be very interested in understanding better.

Artificial intelligence should make a company more efficient and more productive. This metric is a quick way to quantify whether a company understands that benefit or not.

Lastly, I am paying attention to the intersection of AI and crypto. There are many ways to play the intersection, but the area I am more interested in is the monetization of open-source technology. I have a small position in the ai16z token, which is a crypto coin related to the popular Eliza framework, because I believe there is immense value to be created and captured by open-source teams if they can figure out how to create open-source technology with economic incentives attached to the project. This can not only help attract capital for future development, but you can create an entirely new incentive system to attract intellectual capital to help push a project forward.

There will be other opportunities at this intersection, including AI hedge funds, stablecoin payments, and AI workers, but the monetization of open-source technology feels like one of the largest opportunities.

This brings me back to where we started — the market is melting down today. NVIDIA was down more than 11% this morning and stocks across the board were crashing. Every mainstream media outlet was talking like financial markets were under attack. Even bitcoin fell below $100,000 in the early morning hours (the horror!).

But I think you should take a deep breath and see this situation for what it is. The market is testing the emotional discipline of investors. As Buffett always says, the market is a voting machine in the short-term, but a weighing machine in the long-term. Don’t fail the test.

I believe the best way to invest at the edges of innovation is to apply timeless investing principles to new innovations. You want to look for compounding businesses, even if they aren’t necessarily throwing off cash today, and optimize for the companies that will have the resilience to thrive regardless of market conditions.

We are watching a multi-decade situation start to play out. It is early innings. You can put capital into artificial intelligence companies. You can put money into bitcoin and crypto. And you can put money into companies using AI and bitcoin. There is opportunity everywhere.

The best time to be alive will be tomorrow. The second best time is today. We are watching an explosion of economic activity and I predict it will continue for the next few years. There will be volatility along the way, but you need volatility if you want appreciation.

Be thankful we aren’t living through a dead money period. Keep your head on straight and don’t panic buy or sell. Everything you want is at the end of your long-term thinking process. You just have to survive to get there.

Hope you all have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: Today’s letter is free for everyone to read. If you would like to receive this letter every morning in your inbox, you can becoming a paying member of The Pomp Letter.

I spend hours per day trying to make sense of financial markets and then I share my thoughts every day with paying members.

The Bitcoin Reserve Is Not What We Expected

Phil Rosen, the Co-Founder of Opening Bell Daily, and Anthony Pompliano, Author of ‘How To Live An Extraordinary Life’ and CEO of Professional Capital Management, discuss President Trump’s brand new crypto executive orders, David Sacks and the working group that was established, how stablecoins and CBDCs will be treated moving forward, regulation, bitcoin strategic reserve, Project Stargate, and the importance of strong leadership.

Enjoy!

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* Bitdeer - A global technology company focused on Bitcoin mining, ASIC development and HPC for AI, backed by advanced R&D and a massive 2.5 GW global power portfolio.

* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s Letter Is Brought To You By Consensus: Hong Kong.

The world’s most ambitious builders and boldest investors are coming to Consensus Hong Kong (Feb. 18-20, 2025) to make connections and shape the future of digital assets. Whether you’re focused on Bitcoin’s evolution or the latest breakthroughs in Web3 and DeFi, this is where the industry does business.

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* Bitcoin: The Basis for a New Financial System – Unpack Bitcoin’s role in reshaping global finance.

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To investors,

Wall Street is embracing Bitcoin in a way that was previously thought to be impossible. Over the last 48 hours we have heard a flurry of positive comments from numerous CEOs and leaders.

First, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio said on CNBC that he thought non-government money, including bitcoin, reduced risk in a portfolio. He explicitly stated that he owned bitcoin and thought it was interesting.

Second, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan shared a belief that banks “will come in hard” to crypto if they get the regulatory approvals necessary to reduce their risk. Moynihan specifically talked about the benefits of stablecoins, along with the benefits of crypto rails for payments.

Third, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said this morning that he does not believe bitcoin is a threat to the US dollar. He sees the digital currency more akin to an interesting speculative tool.

Fourth, the SEC recently announced a new crypto task force led by Hester Pierce. The group’s goal is to create common sense, clear rules for the crypto industry. This is a substantial 180-degree difference from the previous regulatory approach under the past administration.

Lastly, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said this morning “if you are frightened of debasement of your currency…you can have an internationally based instrument called Bitcoin….I’m a big believer.” Pretty big statement coming from a powerful and influential leader on Wall Street.

My conclusion from hearing these various interviews and announcements is that bitcoin has finally arrived on Wall Street. The ETF launches were the initial crack in the dam, but now we are watching full-blown adoption of bitcoin by the traditional market.

If we fast forward a few years, I fully expect banks to be custodians of crypto assets, crypto tokens will be stuffed in every traditional finance wrapper, and investors will be normalized to investing in tokens just like they invest in stocks today.

As the new and old world collide, we will end up with a hybrid. The best parts of the old world will survive. The bad parts of the old world will disappear. This is how technology innovation works. And it will be a win-win for market participants regardless of which world they started out in.

Macro investors. Bank CEOs. Regulators. Asset managers. They all agree — bitcoin is here to stay.

While it was once cool to be a detractor on bitcoin, that position has quickly become an unpopular one that makes someone look uninformed and ill-prepared for the future.

Hope you have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: I am hosting Bitcoin Investor Week in NYC from February 24-28th. This will be the largest finance conference of the year focused on bitcoin. Speakers include Mike Novogratz, Cathie Wood, Jan van Eck, Anthony Scaramucci, Jack Mallers, and many others.

You can purchase tickets here: Get ticket for Bitcoin Investor Week

Anthony Pompliano Discusses Bitcoin, Trump Presidency, and the US Economy

John Pompliano and Anthony Pompliano discuss bitcoin hitting another all-time high, meme coins, Trump’s inauguration, why so many tech CEO’s were there, how Stanley Druckenmiller looks at the economy moving forward, Joe Biden’s legacy, and the outlook for the Trump presidency.

Enjoy!

Podcast Sponsors

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* Ledger - Ledger secures 20% of the world’s digital assets. Their latest devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, feature secure touchscreens for safer, easier crypto management.

* Bitdeer - A global technology company focused on Bitcoin mining, ASIC development and HPC for AI, backed by advanced R&D and a massive 2.5 GW global power portfolio.

* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

The state of financial markets have been changing for the last 15 years. The Federal Reserve’s decision to conduct massive quantitative easing during the Global Financial Crisis broke the market and things have not been the same since.

But the way investors interact with the market has also been evolving over time too. There has been a rise of self-directed investors, who are investors allocating their personal capital into various financial assets without the need for a financial advisor or stock broker.

This evolution began with the increased access to financial information. Companies like The Street, founded by Jim Cramer, were early to the trend of giving Wall Street quality information to the masses. As self-directed investors became more informed, they started to invest more capital into the market.

The problem at the time was the self-directed investor still had to go through a financial advisor or stock broker. It was hard to access the market directly without the third-party. This friction started to disappear with the rise of Robinhood, Public, WeBull and other retail trading platforms.

Fast forward to today and it is obvious that self-directed investors have immense access to information and markets, which is allowing them to invest in a more efficient way. As efficiency increases, more investors participate with more capital.

Win-win for markets, asset owners, and investors.

But then bitcoin and crypto came on the scene and this trend accelerated even faster. Now self-directed investors are able to deploy immense amounts of capital, while consuming 24/7 real-time information on platforms like X and Reddit.

Digital wallets can be spun up in seconds. Economic value can be whipped around the world in minutes regardless of the hours of operation for a bank or brokerage company. And everything can be done from your phone whenever you want.

You can buy, you can sell, or you can hold.

But the one thing you couldn’t do previously was stake your crypto assets from your phone. This yield-generating activity still required a desktop application or a traditional website. Staking was stuck in the old world user interface, while everything else in crypto was operating in the new world.

That seems to be changing today.

Sol Strategies, a company that I have been working with to scale, announced their first technology product — a Solana staking app. The app is “the first non-custodial staking solution that allows investors to stake Solana (SOL) directly from their phones, delivering a streamlined and intuitive experience.”

The press release says the key features include:

* Non-Custodial Model: Investors retain full control of their keys, enhancing security and ownership of their assets.

* Higher Staking Returns: Investors can expect returns ranging from 8% to 10%, significantly surpassing traditional custodial platforms.

* Compliance and Security: Orangefin, an ISO 27001 compliant validator, upholds the highest standards of security and reliability.

This is fascinating because we are starting to see where the world is headed. Self-directed investors are not only going to have better information, along with better access to markets, but the entire user experience is going to be available on any device, from anywhere, at any time.

This is what digital finance looks like — mobile, real-time access to markets.

Congratulations to the Sol Strategies (CSE: HODL, OTC Pink: CYFRF) team on the product launch. But even more exciting is to understand where the world is headed. I can’t wait to see what other companies and products help push us further into the future.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: I am hosting Bitcoin Investor Week in NYC from February 24-28th. This will be the largest finance conference of the year focused on bitcoin. Speakers include Mike Novogratz, Cathie Wood, Jan van Eck, Anthony Scaramucci, Jack Mallers, and many others.

You can purchase tickets here: Get ticket for Bitcoin Investor Week

Global Liquidity Is Pushing Bitcoin’s Price Around

Phil Rosen, the Co-Founder of Opening Bell Daily, and Anthony Pompliano, Author of ‘How To Live An Extraordinary Life’ and CEO of Professional Capital Management, discuss bitcoin’s relationship to global liquidity, inflation moving forward, interest rates, Donald Trump, federal reserve, and what is going on with TikTok?

Enjoy!

Podcast Sponsors

* BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $500 in rewards.

* Ledger - Ledger secures 20% of the world’s digital assets. Their latest devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, feature secure touchscreens for safer, easier crypto management.

* Bitdeer - A global technology company focused on Bitcoin mining, ASIC development and HPC for AI, backed by advanced R&D and a massive 2.5 GW global power portfolio.

* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

DISCLAIMER: The author of this letter is not a securities dealer or broker, investment adviser or financial adviser, and you should not rely on the information herein as investment advice. The author is a paid advertiser. If you are seeking personal investment advice, please contact a qualified and registered broker, investment adviser or financial adviser. You should not make any investment decisions based on this communication. Pursuant to a 24 month term advisory agreement dated November 25, 2024, the author was compensated by Sol Strategies Inc. for services such as this letter. Examples that the author provides of share price increases pertaining to a particular Issuer from one referenced date to another represent an arbitrarily chosen time period and are no indication whatsoever of future stock prices for that Issuer and are of no predictive value. Stock profiles contained herein are intended to highlight certain companies for your further investigation; they are not stock recommendations or constitute an offer or sale of the referenced securities. The securities issued by the companies profiled should be considered high risk; if you do invest despite these warnings, you may lose your entire investment. Please do your own research before investing, including reading the SEDAR+ filings, press releases, and risk disclosures. It is our policy that information contained in this profile was provided by the company, extracted from SEDAR+ filings, company websites, and other publicly available sources. The author believes the sources and information are accurate and reliable but cannot guarantee it.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

This morning CPI was reported right in-line with market expectations at 2.9% year-over-year. The big surprise came from core CPI, which was estimated to be at 3.3% and instead came in at 3.2%.

Adam Kobeissi and his team pointed out that immediately S&P 500 futures surge over +85 points when the report hit.

This response is interesting because it highlights the complexity of the situation we find ourselves in. On one hand, the market is looking for any sign of relief from the higher inflation levels. Optimism shows up for a simple 0.1% beat on expectations.

On the other hand, CPI is nearly 50% higher than the Fed’s target and it has been increasing in recent months. Add in the fact that critics believe Trump’s policies could be inflationary and you can clearly see one future scenario involving a return of higher inflation.

Asset prices aren’t waiting around to see what happens though. On top of the S&P 500 futures surging, bitcoin also jumped to nearly $99,000 after the CPI report.

Plenty of people continue to yell and scream about a potential market crash right around the corner, but those voices are becoming fewer in number. Even Blackrock’s Larry Fink came out this morning to say the US economy is in very good shape.

Just because the economy is in good shape doesn’t mean that risk is gone. Goldman Sachs sent out this chart. Mike Zaccardi highlights “the equity market is currently near its most concentrated level in 100 years.”

And Heritage’s EJ Antoni tweeted:

“This is the worst start to a fiscal year EVER:

* Spending is up 10.9%

* Receipts are down 2.2%

* FYTD deficit up 39.4% at $711 billion

They're handing Trump a ticking time bomb...”

So the situation is not as straightforward as everyone wants to think. The economy is strong, but the first weeks of 2025 are showing signs of problems ahead. Trump is ready to come into office with his economic policies and people are excited — the big question remains though: What will these policies do to inflation that seems to be stuck around 3%?

The answer to that question is going to determine much of the market’s future in coming months.

Hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: I am hosting Bitcoin Investor Week in NYC from February 24-28th. This will be the largest finance conference of the year focused on bitcoin. Speakers include Mike Novogratz, Cathie Wood, Jan van Eck, Anthony Scaramucci, Jack Mallers, and many others.

You can purchase tickets here: Get ticket for Bitcoin Investor Week

Anthony & Polina Pompliano Discuss Bitcoin, LA Fires, Joe Biden and Mark Zuckerberg

Polina Pompliano, Author of ‘Hidden Genius’ and Founder of The Profile, and Anthony Pompliano, Author of ‘How To Live An Extraordinary Life’ and CEO of Professional Capital Management, discuss Jamie Dimon’s recent comments about bitcoin, why global liquidity matters so much, what is going on with the LA fires, who is responsible, President Biden’s comments on the economy, and Mark Zuckerberg’s recent changes at META.

Enjoy!

Podcast Sponsors

* BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $500 in rewards.

* Ledger - Ledger secures 20% of the world’s digital assets. Their latest devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, feature secure touchscreens for safer, easier crypto management.

* Bitdeer - A global technology company focused on Bitcoin mining, ASIC development and HPC for AI, backed by advanced R&D and a massive 2.5 GW global power portfolio.

* Meanwhile - The world’s first licensed and regulated life insurance company built for the Bitcoin economy. Learn how to tax-optimize your BTC holdings for your life and beyond.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadotis a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe

To investors,

There is only one chart that is dictating financial markets right now. You can watch it exclusively and essentially tell where markets are headed for the next week or two.

Global liquidity.

It really is that simple. Stanley Druckenmiller famously said “it’s liquidity that moves the market.” He is the GOAT for a reason.

We know global liquidity has been dropping in recent weeks, so it is clear why the S&P 500 is going down — it is following global liquidity.

George Noble points out you can see the same thing affecting the MSCI World index as well.

But stocks aren’t going to do this exclusively. Back in November, Michael Howell showed bitcoin was poised for a pullback after global liquidity decreased.

We know bitcoin is the asset most sensitive to changes in global liquidity thanks to the analysis that Sam Callahan did.

Raoul Pal highlights just how closely bitcoin has followed M2 supply.

And he also shows that M2 supply seems to be following the 2016 and 2017 performance.

Sometimes investing is more simple than we like to think. Watch global liquidity. As Druckenmiller said, it will move the market.

Almost everything else is noise.

I hope you all have a great day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: I am hosting Bitcoin Investor Week in NYC from February 24-28th. This will be the largest finance conference of the year focused on bitcoin. Speakers include Mike Novogratz, Cathie Wood, Jan van Eck, Anthony Scaramucci, Jack Mallers, and many others.

You can purchase tickets here: Get ticket for Bitcoin Investor Week

Dave Collum Highlights The Potential Financial Disaster He Sees Ahead

Dave Collum is a Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University.

In this conversation we discuss his 2024 year in review, bitcoin, gold, stock valuations, frontier justice, cancel culture, Elon Musk, government spending, healthcare administrations, and much more.

Enjoy!

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