Market speculation into commodities like Bitcoin and Crude oil pose dangerous risks during the best of times. Heading into a recession, the stakes are even higher. The temptation to participate during volatile periods is a psychological phenomenon that takes hold among casual investors who rarely realize when they’re part of an institutional con. When leveraged institutions are in desperate need of liquidity they’ll stop at nothing to game the system. In this episode, Max offers a cautionary tale of speculative behavior in the crude oil markets during the financial crisis that very few people even know about. He then connects it to the dangers posed to investors who dabble in digital currencies like Bitcoin, especially under a pro-crypto Trump administration.
Access the episode resources.
Resources
Forbes: ‘Worse Than 2008’—Bitcoin Price Braced As Billionaire Ray Dalio Warns Of ‘Monetary Order Breakdown’
Forbes: ‘Big Catalyst’—Serious Fed Warning Spurs Huge BlackRock Bitcoin Price Prediction
NPR: What to know about Trump's 'crypto strategic reserve' plan
Yahoo Finance: Donald Trump’s 29-year-old crypto guru lays out the president’s plans for regulating crypto and rolling back a Biden-era crackdown
Pillsbury Law: Trump 2.0: A New Era for the Regulation of Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets
SDLC Corp: Stablecoins: Characteristics, How They Work, Functionality, and Use Cases
Bitpanda Academy: Meme Coins: Definition & Characteristics
St. Edward’s University: What Are the Exchange Coins
The Digital Chamber: Why is Bitcoin a Commodity?
Investopedia: Is Crypto a Commodity? What It Means, Examples
Book Love
Dan Dicker: Oil's Endless Bid: Taming the Unreliable Price of Oil to Secure Our Economy
Emily Lambert: The Futures: The Rise of the Speculator and the Origins of the World's Biggest Markets
Peter Maass: Crude World
Leah McGrath Goodman: The Asylum: Inside the Rise and Ruin of the Global Oil Market
UNFTR Episode Resources
Peak Oil: It’s a Crude, Crude World.
The U.S. Dollar and 10 Year Treasury: Why Economists Are Freaking the F*ck Out.
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