Gold at $5,000 Is Just the Beginning | Jeroen Blokland

Let's be clear, Bitcoin is an international asset. We are spending like drunken sailors. Bitcoin is the only economic entity where the supply is unaffected by the demand. If you want to preserve. Your wealth you have to convert. That. Currency into an asset that's scarce, desirable, portable, durable, and maintainable. Welcome back to Scarce Assets and welcome your room. Blockland, you're back on the show. It's great to have you. Thank you for making the time to speak with us today and congratulations on the book launch. Yes, thank you and thank you on the launch. It was a it took a while, especially translating it into English, which is not my native language, but it's there. It's out there and pretty happy with it so far. Yeah, well, I haven't gotten through all of it just yet, but I did read the first few chapters and then had the opportunity to review and gloss over the middle back end of the book as well. And really excited to read through the entire book as well as discuss some of the core themes of it today. I do want to start with just acknowledging that your thesis around scarce assets, sound money is really being proven out in real time. Right before we hit record, we were just talking about how incredible the rally has been in precious metals, in particular, both gold and silver. Gold adding about 20 trillion to its market cap in about 18 months, which is just remarkable. And before we get into the first question I want to ask you, I just want everyone to be aware of your background. So Yaroon's a seasoned multi asset investor with more than 20 years of experience constructing and managing client investment portfolios. He is the founder and manager of the Blockland Smart Multi Asset Fund. The fund is built around a focused allocation to scarce assets, which combines the most resilient asset class within the current financial system, which is quality stocks, and then with assets outside of that system, physical gold and Bitcoin. So Yarun, I'm really a big fan of what you do. I think you are living in the future as it relates to just managing client assets and managing portfolios. And so the first question would be, man, what an exciting time for precious metals. I really, you know, even though I'm a Bitcoiner myself and hold most of my net worth in Bitcoin, and that's been incredibly disappointing in 2025, I'm at least happy to see that sound money is really making a resurgence. And I I, I'm happy for those who have held gold and silver for so long because I know it's been a painful ride, but finally vindicated by the moves that have happened in the past year or so. So I think the most exciting place to start would just be talk about gold breaking through 5000 per oz. You've been calling for, you know, kind of a structural repricing, a reallocation to precious metals as part of the investment strategy. So I'm curious, what do you attribute just the massive move in gold and perhaps silver if you want to talk about that as well? I know that's not a part of the portfolio, but I'm sure I'm confident as well. It's still an asset class that you monitor very closely. Yeah, it is because everything that is scarce is better than not scarce assets like debt and the fee of currencies of course now on the gold. So I think a couple of things have happened. The first I think is more gradual that more and more people start to understand that ageing societies and their economies to be able to continue to grow, they need debt. So literally they need debt to buy GDP growth. And I think a lot of people now understand that this whole debt, conceptual debt idea that in the end some government will pay back your debt, debt is now gone. Now it's now a lot about rolling over debts. Is there liquidity enough to make sure that refinancings are not interrupted? Because that would of course put pressure on this whole debt driven system. So I think one change is OK The, the, the, the, the general thought about debt. I'm lending my money to someone or a government that does healthy things with it and then generates GDP growth. In the end, perhaps the GDP growth is still partly valid even though the debt intensity is going up. And so we need ever more depth to to create one unit of GDP, but that in the end that you will get your money back in the sense that debt will be repaid or even lowered. I think that is something a lot of people and investors now understand. That is not going to happen because the whole system is driven on that debt. And then you start people to think, OK, So what is actually the value of that debt? How is that debt driven system? What what is needed to make sure it doesn't collapse? Oh, central banks must in the end buy that debt. So they will create money or through banks they will create money. This is this whole discussion. Of course, that means that my money, which is already money that has no real value underneath it, is even more worthless, so to say. Yeah. So let's find something that stores value, my value, my wealth that that retains purchasing power, however you want to call it. So I think this is a gradual idea since the great financial crisis, but especially after the COVID crisis, it's so obvious we can only grow using debt, and that must be monetized at some sort or some moment. So that's what the second thing that I think are pretty crazy now is that you're our president, So to say, is very obvious about what a lot of people I think intrinsically anticipated that this changing world order. But this guy is saying it out loud every day. Oh, we are not going to help you anymore. Europe. You have to get your act together, invest in defence, things like that. We had the Greenland thing, of course, where it's very obvious. So I think the national advisor of Trump said this is not about making friends. This is basically who is the strongest, who is the biggest and we are going to divide the world in this new monetary order, a world order, global order, whatever you. And that's also adds the geopolitical aspect there. So if you look at Bloomberg headlines for years, every time gold was up for some reason, there was this Bloomberg headline or some other headline. Yes, geopolitics are going up, but this time the geopolitical factor is much more real. It's it's very realistic. You see what is happening internally in the United States. You also see this whole debate in Europe, yeah, this whole climate thing. Is that still valid? Or should we maybe add a little bit more of defense spending? Because there's they're on, on the one side, there's this war going on and on the other side, there's now an angry man that won't help us anymore and basically like that. So this whole geopolitical angle and I think putting these two together with the fact that inflation is still not down where it should be has So a lot of people also understand that inflation is problem. I think that is how how do you call that a perfect storm for an asset that is outside the system, has proven to be perhaps the the longest lasting store of value and is known for its geopolitical hatch, so to say. So yeah, then and then suddenly when you're done, realise that a lot of people do not own and did not own any gold, not any because it's still a 6040. Well, 60% equities, 40% bonds, yeah. Then then you also have the catalyst. People actually must move in their asset location. Central bank must move to move away from the dollar like the Chinese are doing, because the weight of gold was just too low. And so there's also people must act to do something. And, and still a lot of these traditional asset managers, they talk about gold, but they do not invest in gold, at least not strategically or, or for the longer term. They, they now offer it if a client really wants it, but it's not part of their strategic idea or in a future proof proof portfolio. So I think adding all these things together is what makes this explosive mix that you see every every day. And for me, as we discussed also before, for me this is going way too fast. I want it to calm down. I want it to to go much, much slower than that because then it's more predictable and I like predictable so. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot that we could go into and I'm really excited to get into the catalyst a little bit later in the conversation because to your point, I think it is incredibly early. You know, when I think about the gold rally, what I heard from you is the first component is recognizing that the debt needs to be monetized. There's no way to grow out. You know, the growth is slowing for a number of reasons that you write in your book. The second piece is that geopolitical tensions are rising and they don't seem to be that trend does not seem to be changing in any short order. So I'm curious then, like, if you can unpack the idea of how long this will actually last. And maybe the answer is a long time or as long as we think, right? But you write in the book that gold offers unmatched protection against inflation and serves as the anchor beneath nearly every financial system. So these qualities ensure that gold's inevitability comes back or stages A comeback whenever the system comes under strain and you write and it always will sooner than later. And so right now I feel like we're in the the sooner point because it does seem like gold has staged to come back. And so I'm curious, how long does this comeback last? Is this really going to be a structural repricing of sound money for the foreseeable future? Yeah, yeah, that is of course the the $1 million question as especially right now. So I think I wrote a post on X and LinkedIn the other day. I, I'm intrigued, let me put it mildly, by all these people jumping on this narrative. This is only the beginning and you have seen nothing yet. And I told you so. And all of these are they, they just jump from narrative to narrative to narrative. The thing is with goal doubling in whatever months, I don't know if in the short run this is sustainable. I don't know if you are heading for a major pullback and a minor pullback can happen any day. So the only thing I can do, and that is also the core of the book I would say is to say, OK, what was my thesis again? What should happen with gold and the price of gold to make this debt driven system more stable? I had to to rebalance it so that that means that the price of gold measured in Fiat currencies, be it dollars, EUR, yen also interesting right now yuan of course must rise because I'm of the strong belief. I did a lot of research for the book, of course, that we need this whole gold ID, but most of the time it is called anchor. So people have to believe in some kind of store of value. And every single time that societies or emperors or kings debase their currencies, and sometimes they did that literally, of course with their coins and then reducing the amount of silver or gold in it. You can do that only to a certain point and then the system resets and sometimes that's very explosive and a whole new system arise and sometimes you just get a reset. We start over again. And that means that a dollar must be backed by gold, the euro must be backed by gold, or at least to a large extent. Now, if I look at money supply, for example, so money supply, which is M2, and if I'm correct and a lot of people know more about this, that's even A2 narrow a measure for money because it's not total liquidity. But let's take MMM 2 because most people understand I had the broad money supply definition of over the last two months. If you analyse that, it has grown by 17 percent, 17. So it's only two months, but it's analysed 17%. It's now 117 trillion U.S. dollars. So my idea is simple. You have the market gap of gold which is rising exponentially currently, but I think it's now over 3035 ish or something. And to have 117 on the money supply side. So there is one out of three, even a little bit less, let's say, let's say 30% coverage. Now it used to be 60 before the Second World War, it used to be 80 during the Romans, it was 100% because gold was the gold coin. So I don't know if 60 is the NTH target. I don't know if 80 is the end target. I do know because just look around what is happening at 30%. Even after this explosive rise, it is not enough to restore confidence to rebalance the economies and say, OK, we have this debt driven system. That's fine because we now have a lot of gold value in the system now. So that is my only thesis. And if that goes from here straight to 10,000 and then we are at 60% coverage or 50% coverage, I don't know. But I do think in the longer term now that this, the, the only thing that can structurally break this trend is if some other factor restores trust in the system, but with depth rising increase in the air. So we have not talked about the debt number. So money supply is 117 trillion, but total debt is 300-3046 trillion. So if you match gold to debt, it's even and you can say that debt is basically money, so to say. So that is my general thesis. The the balance is not restored enough yet. That means the one has to rise relative to the other going forward. If that is over 2 years, five years, six years, 10 years, I don't know. I have serious no ID to be must the gold coverage come to from 30% now to 6017 eighty, I don't know. I think for the Chinese it has to be 100 to make their currency appreciated by other countries. I don't want to have to yuan unless it's back to 100% by some store value and and that is basically how I look at it. So it's not done. But when this next step materialises could be tomorrow as at rate as we are going could be in a couple of years from now. But the longer term thesis is, is dead enough balance. No it is not. Just look around what is happening. Nobody has a lot of trust in institutions in central banks. In the case of the United States, the central, the independence of the central bank is actually questioned by the president. You can, you cannot, you cannot argue that there's something happening there, even though central bankers want to want to be or look independent. So that that is my answer to your pretty difficult question I would say. When it comes to holding Bitcoin security, Peace of Mind starts with architecture. On Ramps, multi institution custody distributes control across three independent regulated key holders in a two of three quorum. No single point of failure, no pooled or omnibus exposure segregated client titled faults. You retain full legal ownership while on Ramp coordinates security compliance and operational work flows behind the scenes. It's strength of many delivered through the simplicity of 1 multi institution custody is the foundation for everything. We build sound infrastructure that distributes counterparty risk and provides fault tolerant resilience with clear audits and institutional controls. And now on Ramp is piloting flat predictable pricing, making best in class Bitcoin custody and financial services more accessible now than ever. On Ramp strengthen many simplicity in one. To learn more, check out on rampbitcoin.com. I'm sorry to give you a difficult question to start the interview here, but you know, I have noticed that as well, right? That The Mirage of Fed independence in particular is certainly waning. It's been interesting in my shorter career, about 10 years in traditional finance and now in the Bitcoin space, I've never seen anything as dramatic as we've seen just in the past 6 to 12 months with Jerome Powell and President Trump. And it's kind of refreshing to be honest, because Trump does kind of just say what's on his mind. And it's at least refreshing to the extent that it's nice to see that the idea of Fed independence is really nothing more than an idea or it's nothing more than a perception rather right now. So now you have like the Trump administration has been pressuring and has been slandering, quite frankly, Jerome Powell in public for months now, and they're going to appoint a new Fed chair that will serve the political means of the United States government. Now, people, economists will say that that's not right. But I would say that the Federal Reserve and central banks have never operated independently. They've always been serving the needs of the government. What are your thoughts on? That to a certain extent, yes. So if you look, for example, in Japan and the Ministry of Finance decides if there's yen intervention or not, not the central bank on its own. So central bank independence with a government that basically holds all power is always relative, right? The thing now is that Trump is very vocal about that. So here in Europe, we do it implicitly. And so you have all these discussions about how how big must the ECB balance sheet be to make sure that financial markets work properly. Missed the card, Had to use the word inflation is only transitory to make sure that she could be able to start interest rate hikes. Not until eurozone inflation was 8.6%. So that is not independence questions literally. But it does show you she was in favour of getting these debt levels down after the COVID crisis. And she was definitely not focused solely on bringing in inflation down to 8 to 2% from that 8.6%, right? So, So I think there are many, many examples in the book. I give an overview of all the different programs that the central banks have launched since the great financial crisis. All these abbreviations, all these difficult programs, 90% of them were about bond buying, even despite what inflation was below target, above targets, not looking at the target. Most of the time central bank crises programs or whatever programs are focused on bull buying, not on bringing inflation down or up. So you can, you can say this is not a question of independence literally or, or directly, but certainly it, it, it, it must, you must ask questions about why they are doing that. And the fact is that they, they now because of fiscal dominance, you can call it whatever you want, but they are forced. They are forced. I don't think that every central bank banker wants to, but they are forced to also keep an eye on debt sustainability next to inflation. And sometimes debt sustainability takes over. Take, for example, Italy and in the European debt crisis, now you have President Trump forcing. Hitting the, the, the the the chairman of the, the, the the Federal Reserve. So you have all kinds of forms. In Japan, they had eight years of youth curve control, 8 years. The only thing that it was when it was implemented for a longer time was after the Second World War in the United States, the only time. But Japan just did it eight years without a massive crisis. And the the ECB kept interest rates below 0 for seven straight years. There was not always a crisis. So, and this is the interesting point when I talked to 6014 investors, these investors have realized reasonable returns because of the great performance of equities, but somehow because their overall return was pretty OK, they, they, they refuse, I call it refuse to think about what is happening to central bank, central bank independent see debt driven economic systems. And even in the case of U.S. President Trump, some people refuse to think, OK, something is happening, or at least what you mentioned. Central bank independence is always relative. And so, so and sometimes it's nobody talks about it. And now it's the talk of the town, of course. But I think it's, it's so naive to say that central banks can always do what they want in the benefit of the people to keep inflation at 2%, which is already a strange target by the way, but that that's another story. How can you, if you really understand that all of these central bank have done all of their programs, all of their bond buying, how can you argue that this is central bank independency? I don't know, I don't understand. Yeah, that's a great stat you called out there. I, I didn't get there in the book yet, but 90% of the 90% of intervention you said was bond buying and it was not relative to inflation being up or down. And one of the great anecdotes, and then let's get into the great rebalancing. But one of the great anecdotes you had at the start of the book, I think reinforces 2 themes that we were just discussing. The first is trust in the system, in the financial system, in my opinion, is still on the decline, right. And so you mentioned that gold and hard assets will need to back the financial system at some to some extent in the future where there's enough trust restored in those currencies and in the debt levels. But right now that's not happening. And you have a great anecdote from 2022 with the UK and I think this is often forgotten about or overlooked by many people. Could you tell us again what happened? Just a recap with trust anomics and what I think the most important take away is what happened with the bond market and why that really challenges the 6040 portfolio. And then we can get into, you know, some of the themes of the book there. Yeah. And it's it's, it's very timely as well as if you look at what's happening in Japan. So I will come there as well. So in 2022, UK, if you look at the UK finances, potential GDP growth levels is one of the most vulnerable countries financially, so to say. And they demonstrated that in 2022. What happened? Listers and her people decided to announced a tax cut mostly for the rich that was unfunded as so there was no cutting of expenditures somewhere else. And for some reason, because this is always a bit difficult to forecast when something like this will happen, but markets took that really the wrong way and suddenly the idea was but OK, we already have these fragile finances, we have these big budget deficits. This is not going to work. If you are going to hand out infinite tax cuts, then the last bit of budget discipline, if it even was still there is out of the window, right? And in a matter of days bond prices collapse, but also less liquid bond prices collapse. For example, inflation linked bonds. They were, these were used massively by pension and insurance companies and, and, and the thing was everything collapsed, yields spiked. And The funny thing was, The funny thing was that in I think less than 10 days or two weeks, the Bank of Japan of the Bank of England had to step in. And in the end they had to buy more bonds. The amount of bonds was bigger than the whole infinite tax cut that was announced. And so this was the market saying, if you do do something stupid like that, it's such fragile finances, we are going to punish you. And in the end, there's only one solution. The the, the, the central bank has to make sure that markets don't spiral out of control. And so it's, it's very, it's, it's really laid bare the vulnerabilities in a debt driven system. Whenever your budget deficit is is large enough or your debt is high enough, or the combination of the both, at some point if you do something that does not fit, something called budget discipline, then then things will go the wrong way. Now, even though the situation is Japan is in to some extent different, we now have the new Prime Minister and she always also announced food tax cuts. Basically the same thing that happened had the bond yields in Japan were already rising. But there was one day after she's announced it that I think the 30 year bond yield went up by 1/4 of a percentage point. Now that never happens in Japan because they have eight years of yield growth control. But you show the same thing happening. There was a Prime Minister or a politician announcing or suggesting or proposing unfunded. This was partly unfunded tax cuts. It was also temporary this, but with these high debt levels and budget deficits also larger than 5% of GDP, even though Japan is doing a little bit better in recent years. Again, we saw the same dynamic but less extreme. So, so it means that if you believe and IA lot of people believe that if you believe that countries are able to run structural high deficits because it's it's very difficult to cut expenditures or to increase taxes, then you must also also understand that the way the bond market works changes. And that was the second part of your question, this whole so in my book, but I can show you many charts. I, I, I'm a practical guy, I just look at numbers and then try to make sense of what's happening. So if you look at the relative volatility of bonds to gold or equities, doesn't matter most same time they, they have doubled, they have doubled. So from this whole idea, this is a relatively safe asset that gives you a little bit of return. It's now not really a safe asset, giving you a negative real return once you take inflation into account. So I cons I have been constructing portfolios for my entire working life. That is what I do. I'm a multi estimate investor. So if I have one asset class that changes its character characteristics because of what is happening in the world. So that that automatically changes My Portfolio diversification, portfolio risk and return characteristics. So even if you have no view and what is happening in the world and why debt is a must if you want to continue grow, but just look at the facts of the characteristics of bonds, equities, gold and whatever you want to. Then you will see that an allocation of 40% should then be 30% or 20% or in my case 0% but not 40. It should be less Bonds is either the IT depends on how you measure it. It's the biggest asset class or the second biggest asset class. It depends a little bit on on how you determine bond markets and indices and things like that. But let's say it's, it's a very big asset class now and that has that must start to move. So now you will see that the realized volatility of Japanese government bonds will spike. They will spike not only if they incurred a loss because interest rates are up, but also the volatility part, this whole safe asset part. It's, it's not it's, it's not useful anymore. It's also not true anymore. And, and, and, and if you run the numbers, then you have to adjust your portfolio portfolio accordingly, unless you believe that, for example, bond volatility will go down again. But my question is how, because the, the, the source of the higher volatility is in the bond market and debt market itself. That is the core reason. It's not equities, it's not geopolitical, no, it's depth that causes volatility. And, and then I my, my point is then you have to be honest. If you want to give your clients the best possible strategic asset allocation, that should involve a reduction of bond allocations from 40 to 30, from 30 to 20, in my case, from 2 zero. I don't know where you want to go, but it cannot be the same as before. Yeah. And I think that has incredible implications for capital markets, right? Because to your point, you still have most of the investable assets allocated to equities and fixed income. A number that I saw before we started the interview was roughly $260 trillion of investable assets. Large majority of that is equities and fixed income. And then there's real estate, of course, and then alternative assets of various types, including Bitcoin, which is part of your strategy. But what I think is remarkable your own is that the fact that you have a very pragmatic and practical stance and case in your book and you've been an advocate for this for a number of years now. And you're not the only one. There's many people out there who are advocating for scarce asset allocation, sound money, the debt is unsustainable, inflation is higher rates are lower, negative real yields. I'm really curious like what is the catalyst for the great rebalancing and the the context for the listener as well as the great. I'll define the great rebalancing is just the shift of, and I, I want you to correct me, but the shift of investable assets into assets that actually accurately portray the risk factors and the return factors at play, right? So you're, what I'm taking away from the great rebalancing is we're moving away from fixed income being a core part of portfolios and having to move into scarce assets. So I'm curious, A, what is your definition of the great rebalancing? Then B, let's start talking about the catalyst. What will make this? Happen. No. I think this was a pretty good way of describing it. So the great rebalancing for me is the gradual, it's not so gradual now, but the gradual realization that the, the traditional way that we have been told how to invest, to build a proper investment portfolio for the long run is not done by combining only equities and bonds anymore. And it doesn't matter what kind of flavors of equities and bonds. The whole thing is that one of these two asset classes will not deliver, not on return, but also not on the risk diversification part. And so, and this is also in the book. I, I, of course, as you say, I, I look at numbers, I look to 40 years back on the characteristic of bond equity portfolios and equity gold portfolios. Now we can talk about sharp ratios and things like that. It's too technical, but you can see if it over the last 40 years, a portfolio including gold instead of bonds was already better. But if you look, look at the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, they are no need, not even close to each other. So bonds, for example, have given you a negative real return over the past 20 years. And let that sink in. You give your money to the government for 20 years and then in the end, if you add inflation to it, you have lost. Yeah. So what is what is the whole idea of a bond? So if you, if you put that into statistics like the sharp ratio, the, the sharp ratio literally goes off the chart because because the sharp ratio below 0 doesn't tell you anything, only that the asset that you invested in had a negative return. And that is that is, that is that is the case. So my, to answer your question, the catalyst must come. I, I think from two ways. The first we discussed kind of what is happening now. So less trust in the financial system, less trust that debt can be repaid, less trust that there won't be any further heavy Fiat currency debasement through money creation, inflation, things like that. All of the things that you see playing out now, geopolitical tensions rising structurally because, yeah, this thing, the clash between China and United States is also still unfolding. But the other part is and and this is the interesting part for me and I also described this in the book. So I come from the traditional financial as well that you have these, we call them calculators, but the people that are very good in statistics. So they will run the numbers and especially after this year when they run the numbers with the 2025 data, they will see that their optimization models will not spit out any allocation toward both none 0. So this is this is the the objective outcome. Now what most asset allocators do, they have all these kind of boundaries and ranges that they that they give restrictions to the optimization model. But if you run the optimization model without restrictions, my guess is even over 40 years, but especially over 3020 and 10 years, you will get 0 bond allocation 0. So then these people will have to go to their boss, both something changed and then it depends on the boss. This is a little bit a story, you understand, but are we going to do something with that or not? And then that boss has to go to the CEO, OK, you have to kick out all of our bonds, guys and girls because bonds are not going to help our clients anymore. Now I think you understand this is something really, really difficult because they the CEOs as shareholders, maybe it's listed and things like that. And so I think that a lot of people higher up in these traditional asset managers are very rare or aware of what is happening, but are they the ones to be the first one to tear down their business model. So my guess is that, and I expect this to happening right now once their clients start to leave saying you are not giving me option of alternative asset classes, You are not looking at the numbers. My own optimization model that I can now use using Jet GPT or Grog says 0 percentage in bones and you give me 40. And so, so this is this is the catalyst I expect. I must also immediately admit that I would have expected this already 6 and 12 months ago. And so it's very slow process. It's a very frustrating process. But this is the thing, I think a lot of these people are aware that if you run the numbers and strategic asset allocation is looking in, in the in the rear mirror and then hoping that things stay the same that you cannot, you cannot say things are the same. So and also the numbers have changed. So I think the catalyst is already there, but who is going to tear down its own fixed income department which yields a lot of income earnings and things like that. So I think this is also about stakes. And so who is going to up the stakes? And I also think this is the reason why a lot of my semi competitors are more like fintech or smart tech guys and girls than traditional investors going out because I had to get out of the traditional system and start a newfound to make sure that I could do what I wanted to do. So, and I think this is a more, this is a slower process than than I anticipated, but I think that'll be the catalyst. The catalyst in terms should we do something is already there, geopolitical. Just look outside, but also running the strategic asset allocation, mean variance optimization numbers, whatever you want to use, they won't spit out 40% points at all. Here's the conversation no one wants to have. If something happened to you tomorrow, could your family access your Bitcoin? Really think about it. The seed freeze hidden in your house, the hardware wild and the safe. That complex multi 6 setup. You understand it, but does your spouse? Do your children? Billions and Bitcoin are already lost forever because people did not plan for this moment. On ramps Inheritance solution is built into our multi institution custody from day 1/3 institutions. Clear beneficiary designation and professional succession planning. No technical knowledge required from your heirs and with our new flat tier pricing starting at $250 monthly, your family won't face surprise custody costs just because Bitcoin appreciate it. The same predictable fee whether Bitcoin hits 200K or 2 million. Don't leave your family's future to chance. There's strength in many visit on rampbitcoin.com/inheritance that is on rampbitcoin.com/inheritance. Yeah. I mean, those are great points and a couple things stick out to me because first and foremost, it's an unfortunate situation that you describe where you have the advisor client relationship, the advisor is representing the broader firms interests and they're leaning on their, most people are not actually deceptive, right? But they're leaning on the resources of the firm and the firm, whether it's, you know, let's just say one of the major wire houses that has investment strategy teams and they're still recommending equity, largely equity, fixed income allocations. And maybe tactically, you might want to own some gold or you might want to have some alternatives like structured notes to have some sort of to meet some sort of investment objective. The the challenge though, to your point though, is that you kind of have that top down direction from investment strategy teams, from boardrooms, from C-Suite executives at these firms and the advisors who are representing the client interest are not, are just kind of following the leadership of their firm. But to your point, the client may start to realize, I think the most acute and most, the most acute and most painful path to realization is probably people just recognizing that even though their brokerage account balance is going up over time, it's affording them less and less things that they want, right. And then you have some amount of those people that start to maybe ask. More critical questions of themselves or their advisors. That's great. You know, I generated a 10% or 15% return in My Portfolio last year, but I've noticed the trend over each year. I'm unable to, you know, keep up with my insurance premiums or keep up with my auto loan, whatever it may be, right? And so I think, unfortunately, there's just going to be a lot of pain realized because most people are not portfolio managers, right? They're relying on someone else to be the expert to help advise them. And it's unfortunate because unless with the exception of, I would say more independent registered investment advisors and probably more like, let's say we're creative or advisors who think a little bit more out-of-the-box. Most people are just following the guidance that they get from their firm. And then one of the other challenges to loop that in as well, as you mentioned the, the firm leadership not wanting to cause upheaval within the organization. I you know, where my head goes is, well, what you're proposing your own is most people should own little bonds and maybe in many cases no bonds at all. But that is a huge issue to governments that need people and institutions to be purchasing their bonds. So I'm curious, do you think at some point within this great rebalancing the government start to fight back? Do you think that there's financial repression, capital controls, mandates from governments that institutional investors, even maybe retail investors that have managed accounts need to own bonds? Do you think that is coming? Because how else do they keep the demand outside of just continuing to monetize the balance sheet and let inflation balloon? Yeah, very good question. Before I answer that, the answer is by the way, yes, I think that will happen and it is already particular. It is happening. One step back. What I have noticed is this, people really don't understand inflation. They just don't understand it. And I think some of these larger asset managers or, or or as you mentioned that they they get reefed on the top down. I really don't think they understand what happens with your money, your savings, your bond investments when you walk around in the groceries. But you are frustrated that prices are so high. And I have clients that invest with me, but and not that they have to invest with me, but invest in general, but they keep sitting on that savings account because what they see in their banking app, they see this little ADD every month of that low interest rates. So they feel they the only thing they see. And that's the same. I too, I'm guilty of presenting my returns in nominal terms. Otherwise nobody understands my returns. But I would like to present them in real terms. So if if everything that you see prices in the grocery store but also in your banking app and your returns is nominal, people do not understand. And that's not a bad thing. It's they're just not accustomed to looking at real stuff. And that's also difficult. If you don't understand real stuff, you don't don't understand gold, for example, because that's real stuff. And so I think we can talk about investing and I do that a lot, of course, in my book, but I too should add more emphasis on what actually is, is the value of money and how it is deteriorated or debased or whatever you want to call it by central banks, by inflation, by money supply growth. And I think once people understand that part better, then I think the going back to your previous question, the demand pool, give me something else in My Portfolio will accelerate. So that is that is my my idea. And that's also why I spent so much time making charts about inflation because it's just difficult to make people understand. Then on the financial repression, yes, definitely, because otherwise the system won't work. So for you have thousands of examples, but for example, the Bank for International Settlements, the the, the central Bank of central banks, they determine what is required or what counts as a buffer for liquidity ratios and and and and buffers for against a financial crisis. Every single time sovereign bonds are the first on the list. They are always first. You get no cut off, you get no haircuts, you get no, this is this is every time, all kinds of regulations in the pension industry, in the insurance industry, they make sure that you have to buy bonds to to be able to meet regulations. Look at stable coins. I think the US is, is pretty clever on this, OK, everybody wants to have stablecoins. Let's make sure that stablecoins must buy government bonds. That's the deal. So Europe again missed out on that whole concept. We, we want to forbid it, but it wasn't actually a great tool. So now 95% of all stablecoins is U.S. dollar based there. So it's 5% or 2% in Europe. It's laughable. But if they stimulated that they also had a new resource of both buying for all these debt that has to be bought from France and things like that there. So yes, you, you are going to see financial repression happening and, and again, the net takes all kinds of sources. So in the Netherlands and another couple of countries that now are talking about and in some countries it's already active, you have the exit tax. So if you leave the country, you have to pay so so there are thousands of different ways that you can keep money within the system and can you force Iras or 401 KS in your country and other So in in in because of the defined contribution is also getting bigger in the Netherlands. You're also there are lots of commercials build your own pension funds for later. Technically, all of these investments could, yeah, be forced financial repression to buy bonds. So I expect there is always a buyer of last resort central bank. So while they will explain to you that the central bank balance sheet must be big because of liquidity and refinancing, it's also when nobody, and this is also my big issue I have with M&T, Modern Monetary Theory, who is going to buy? Who wants to buy the bulls? I'm not. So this creates creates an issue so you can issue bonds like never before. But still. And The thing is, I get a lot of pushback. But because then someone thinks in a balance sheet and it says, yes, but if it's a liability for the government, it must be an asset on somebody's balance sheet, right? But if that asset gives you a negative real return because interest rates are below inflation, who wants to hold that asset? And so financial refresh, no, no. So there must be some one rule that forces others and hopefully not us to buy those bonds. And in the end, it's always to central bank. And This is why the the share of bonds and debt that central banks have is growing over time, because every day somebody wakes up this nice interview that I saw on the On the Ramp podcast, I must sell my bonds. So somebody else must buy that wonderful asset through financial repression. So yes. Right. Yeah, that you made, you made a number of great points that I think are worth reinforcing. The first is on the stablecoin front, Tether became the top 20 largest holders of U.S. Treasuries in 2025. Yeah. And that happened like overnight, right? That happened in a matter of a year. I mean, they, they've owned for for a number of years U.S. Treasuries. But the scale and accumulation that that happened is remarkable, Yes. And so to your point that stable coins are certainly going to be a sponge for a lot of government securities, particularly U.S. government securities, because to your .95% of stable coin issuance is dollar denominated. Another great tool for financial repression that comes to mind is 4 O1 KS. So I just kind of went through this recently. I had some stale old four O 1 KS from previous employers that I hadn't rolled over. And you know, that was my laziness, quite frankly, I should have done it much sooner. But if you just have a four O 1K plan with your employer, you're very restricted in terms of what you can own, right? So it's typically, you know, just a few mutual fund options for equities, developed markets, emerging markets, US only, etcetera. And then you have a number of fixed income options. To my knowledge, very, very few, in my experience, at least working at large financial institutions, very few companies actually offer any sort of alternative investments or anything besides equities and fixed income and four O 1K plans. And I don't know off the top of my head, I could Google it, but I don't know off the top of my head how much, how much is tied up in 4 O 1K and, and the like in other countries as well, the equivalent. But that's a lot of money, right? And so that's just money that's allocated in many cases to fixed income. And most people don't really do anything with that. So that's just a great, like that's almost like a passive bid, right? Because people contribute to their paychecks every every other week. And that just flows into government securities. And then one point as well that maybe we should get a little bit deeper on is the idea of having money outside of the system. So we talked a little bit about gold at the start of the interview. And in your investment strategy, you're holding physical gold vaulted, you're not holding paper claims. And then Bitcoins, another of course, asset that exists outside of the system. And you also have a similar approach to your Bitcoin. You're not holding it on exchange, you're not holding ETFs. You're holding directly allocated to your funds with a reputable custodian of your choice. And so I'm curious, just like in the context of geopolitical tensions, inflation, financial repression, how important is it in your opinion to own monies outside of the system? I think it's crucial. So I'm, I'm not in the camp that the financial system should collapse imminently or anytime sooner because I believe in this whole rebalancing trajectory. But I think it's, it's extremely, we just talked about the, the necessity of financial repression. We have to keep all the. So if you are forced to buy something you don't want to, you must make sure that the money that can be forced to do that is is less or is somewhere else. That is. That is the basic question you have to answer. How do I get my money out of the system so that I can be forced to debase it or to buy government bonds with it or they or to pay taxes on it or not, That's all. And so I think you should have your money in what is proven to be stores of value. That can also be a classic Ferrari, but that's not practical. And also if possible outside the financial system that's built that thrives on that whole debt system right there. So, so with gold and Bitcoin, I think you have a pretty tool, well known but also pretty interesting alternatives as long as you are the holder of those. So you mentioned paper money, paper gold or or Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoin futures now and derivatives. So derivatives are at the end of the spectrum and in the end when when the music stops you and you owe nothing because these are not backed all as there are much more derivatives than there are there is the physical stuff underneath it, right. So, so please, if if you decided you have to make sure that you own it in some cases, for example, in the gold, that means you must rent a vault in Switzerland because that I think is the best location from a European perspective. And that costs money. So a lot of people say, yeah, but that's expensive. I can buy in gold ETF for 35 basis points or something, Yes, But if push comes to shove, it's not allocated to you. What happens if everybody D bonds, its gold, Is it still there? So that's yes, it must be outside the system. But as is now very popular to say on X and LinkedIn own asset and in my case own scarce asset, you must make sure that you can actually reach it. You can touch it or you can make whatever reason, whatever method to make sure it is yours and and that and that is I think a must have that should be added. So so I I know a lot of people just buy Bitcoin ETF source on song exchange or or buy Bitcoin on some exchange. Yeah, be fairly aware of that. Your money out of size of the system is not really your money outside of the system if things go the wrong way, right? Right. Totally agree. And I want to be respectful of time. So maybe we can try to get through a few more questions. Just kind of rapid fire almost. So one of the things you're when you talk about is the, the scale of the wealth transfer that's currently underway, right? You have the baby boomers that own so much wealth. Last I saw was 80 trillion. I believe it maybe that was the US specifically and that was a few years old. So it's, they have a ton of wealth. There's a transfer that's happening as they age, they pass away, children inherit which is predominantly millennials, ETC. I'm curious, just anything else you'd want to call out as relates to the great rebalancing and the wealth transfer that we didn't cover already? Yeah. So in my book, I used the number is 124 trillion. And if you compare that to the total market cap of equities and bonds, you're not that far off. So that's how much money is going to transfer. And of course, a lot of that money is actually in equities and bonds, because these are baby boomers. My idea is first there's a lot of attention on the size of that amount and of course what younger generations will do with that money. So I also pay a lot of attention to that phenomenon. And then you see that younger generations think totally different about different asset losses being crypto, Bitcoin, real estate, bonds, equities. So in general to keep it general, but the appetite for alternatives is way, way, way higher and and appetite for bonds is, is way less. And also there was this nice, I think it's Bank of America. They asked younger generation millennials, what do you think that the traditional 64 portfolio will be able to provide you and to realize a solid pension for you? And I think from the from the baby boomers, it was 68 or 78% that said, yes, that's great. And it was 2828% for the younger generation. That's all a 40 or 50% gap. So that is huge. So that is one thing. And of course there's a lot of talk about it. And to come back briefly to those traditional asset allocators, when I was studying on these great wealth transfer dynamics, I saw a lot, really a lot of advisors, as you already referred to saying, but in the end, these people will get old and they need bonds. No, you don't need bonds. They are destroying your purchasing power. You don't need bonds because you're old. That's that's not true. But they will say it because this whole fixed income department must, must keep going, right? So the numbers are huge. The appetite for alternatives like gold and Bitcoin are, are, are so much higher than for baby boomers. So if they are are able to do, because it also depends on the infrastructure and who who do you talk to and what is your financial advisor, then that would be a major shift. But the other point I like to make and I I think that gets overlooked and unfortunately, I do not belong to the millennials. I'm just a bit too old. But I think hopefully like a millennial, these will also be the people running the four one case running the new, the big asset managers, running the political departments with, with finances and things like that. So, so it's not only the money that is changing hands, but also the mindset is changing. So if you look at me, so I'm 47, but I have a totally different mindset than the traditional asset manager, I would say. I think this is again talking about catalysts. The money is there. They will inherit a lot, a lot of money, but also the mindset is there. And this is also why it's so interesting, even though I'm a simple investor, to keep looking at the infrastructure structure of Bitcoin, blockchain and so on, because you also need the infrastructure to make that transition, to do that rebalancing. The reels have to be there, so to say. And I think this isn't a very interesting part. I'm not going to give advice to younger generation, but if you get involved in developing these new reels, I think that is a great job. It doesn't exist right now. You use a bit of AI and things like that, but all this down downbeat, there are a lot of new jobs to be created. There are a lot of new investment solutions to be created. So they have the money, they have the knowledge at some point and they have the mindset they want to do something different. And I think that last part should not be underestimated that millennials think different than baby boomers and that is going to materialize in, in, in different solutions, in a different setup of how portfolios look and how we do our investments, look at pensions, things like that. Here's what keeps bitcoiners awake. You're still securing millions of dollars the same way you secured thousands. That hardware wallet in your drawer. Your family's entire future depends on you not losing it for getting the PIN or something happening to you on ramps. Multi institution custody removes that burden. Three independent institutions hold your keys. No single point of failure. No seed phrases to protect, no explaining complex recovery processes to your spouse. And now we're offering flat tier pricing. One predictable monthly fee starting at $250. Other Bitcoin is at 100K or 500K plus with on rate buyer raise. You get the same institutional security with tax advantage growth. This is how smart investors protect generational wealth without the weight on their shoulders. There's strength in many. Learn more at on rampbitcoin.com. 100%. You know, the mindset is incredibly important. I want to just at least acknowledge that and maybe we can wrap on AI on on the topic and how that fits into your world view. But I want to at least acknowledge that it is ultimately the mindset and it's the agency of the person that matters more today than I think it ever has. In general, I think the gap between high agency person and I'm speaking specifically to people who are probably early in their career, middle of their career, need to still think about several decades ahead and what that looks like in terms of growing wealth and providing for a family. I think there's never been a better time to be alive. But at the same time, I think there's never been a time a worse time to be alive for a lot of people as well. But it all literally depends on how much agency you have in your life and how willing you are to use the tools at your disposal to further your skill set, to further your. The value proposition in the workforce. So it's something that's been on my mind a lot as well because I see so many people in my peer group, which is like I'm on the border of millennial and Gen. Z and I see people early 30s, late 20s. A lot of them are in a very doom and gloom state because they see around them that to your point, the 6040 portfolio is not going to work for me. The career path that I thought was safe and secure is not appearing to to be. So there's more and more layoffs happening. And then you see this in the rise of just like meme coins prediction markets, a lot of people perceive the only potential way to have a future is to gamble and potentially hit a big. But as we know, most people end up losing. And so I certainly agree with you, man. I think it's, it's a great time to be alive, but it really is a challenging time, right? We talked about geopolitical risks, we talked about inflation risk, We talked about having to re question the assumptions of money and how do you preserve your wealth. There's just a lot to think about, but the tools are out there. And I think your book's a great resource. And so before we close your own, just because I know you follow equity markets, you invest in equity markets and namely quality stocks as part of the strategy, I'd be curious just to hear your thoughts on like the AI bubble discourse. I think, you know, some people think it's a bubble, other people think it's going to provide insane productivity gains that could potentially help get out of some of the debt situation. I know in your book, I know it's a complex topic, I know in your book you go deeper, but what are the high level thoughts on just artificial intelligence as it relates to investing and then also as it relates to growth? Yeah. So on the growth part, because I think that's easier. So I think that's on the macro level, AI will at least temporary increase productivity. But what a lot of people forget is that aging and aging population declines productivity growth, lowers productivity growth because people of over 60, they will have trouble embracing AI and some even don't want to. People that are over 60, they work slower than people that are 30, right? So if you have an aging economy, the basic trend is down in your productivity growth. And I think AI can stop that or at least still part of that downward trend. Is it a massive reversal? I don't think so, because if you look at history, the downtrend is pretty clear. It's pretty statistical significant and it's also explainable. It is this has to do with this aging part. But but I do think it will do something. And then maybe even a more societal, I can relate to what you are saying. So I see a lot of people, I do it as well sometimes to get angry about things that are not going in the right way or you're angry at Trump or the too much climate rules or whatever. And you see, and I also think that a lot of people kind of give up and then they say, I'm going to vote for someone who is going to redistribute all sorts of wealth because I'm I'm not getting it. So I want to take it from somebody else, but as you mentioned, the whole AI space and that is what I do think offers a lot of risks in, in let's say old school jobs. But at the same time, everybody agrees that this could be a time of massive change. As some even said, it's the, it's the, the, the 4th industrial revolution, technical revolution, whatever revolution. So in a revolution, there is so much to do And and I think that is I see a lot of people that are a little bit younger wrestling with that ID. But you have to build, you have to try stuff. You have to. I have two young children, so they are 6 and 9. They're too young, but my, my, if I tell them something is this is new, nobody knows what is going to happen. Try to build something with it and not look at the, the, the ugly part that it will take something away. So, so that is I think how we should look at AI. It also has a lot of option options and chances, but you have to adjust. You have to do things differently that I'm at 47 will not be able to do anymore. So I'm, I'm too old. I'm, I'm pushing the productivity growth level down. And then on the investing part, and this is relates to the whole thesis of quality stocks. So I think that there will again, just with the Internet, there will be a couple of winners and they decide, they will decide how the market works and they will also profit from everything that is going on. So I don't think it's a bubble per SE because the potential is huge. I do think and that happened to the Internet again, that investors are getting ahead of themselves or could be adding ourselves. And then it takes longer because it's not that these tech companies are not AI ready, but all the other countries that have to implement their AI tools have to be ready. And that takes much longer than being the AI company developing all these AI tools and agents and things like that. So that is one thing. And the second thing is, and that will be a story for I think 2027 or 2028, the focus now is on government debt. So in the book, most of the time it's about government debt. But quality stocks also have one of the three major characteristics being low levels of debt. Now every company in the world, if you want or not, you are getting punished. If you don't, you have to invest, invest in AI and a lot of these companies will not be able to make enough profits to make up for those investments. And that is the what I think will happen in in maybe next year, that companies that have invested heavily in AI but are not on top of the list are not monetizing it enough. They will get punished. And this is also why quality stocks had a pretty dismal year last year. But I think the whole AI and I think that is a bubble, the AI investment bubble because 80% of the companies won't make money, enough money to reimburse those investments or paid that pay down those loans. Yeah. So that is not something that is acute now a problem now. But I do think this will be a, a, a thematic in a couple of years when you see monetization of AI happening, just not across all countries. So that is my investment thesis on AI. Don't think AI itself is a bubble. I think parts of the AI investment cycle is a bubble. Thank you for that. If you have two more minutes and just be curious on the 2026 outlook, anything else you'd want to share as relates to other core assets in the portfolio, Bitcoin, gold, I know we talked touched more on gold, but anything related to Bitcoin for 2026 you're paying attention to so? Bitcoin needs a catalyst and I don't know what the catalyst is. For me, it's pretty obvious you want to have want to have money outside of the system. I like the whole so you have digital central bank currencies. Can I have digital store value outside digital central bank currency, please? So for me, settlement time is also a thing as or gold as a settlement time that's ages. I like settlement time. Why do I like settlement time? That's also what Lynn Alden in her book highlighted. The more time there is between the transaction and the settlement, the more time there is for governments or central banks, Oregon banks to get in between. Bitcoin makes that extremely short period. That's what it's like as well because of financial repression. We talked about fiscal dominance, all these kinds of things. So I would say even though Bitcoin did not perform in 2025, the is the world moving towards the need of a digital store of value and Bitcoin is obvious, obviously still the number one, they will remain in my view, the number one or is the world moving away? I think gold is stealing the light of Bitcoin, but the way the world is developing, I would say, isn't it at least part of your job as an asset manager, as an investor, as a saver to look at this digital store of value? It's still working. Hash rates are still going up, things like that. So it's still safe. So my idea is that at some point Bitcoin has to play catch up. And I don't know when that is going to happen, but I would say that the world is developing in favor of Bitcoin and not against it. So, so then it's then at some point that must be reflected in its price, right? I think so, yeah. I mean, I would say that the outlook remains bullish for 2026 just because at the end of the day, you have all the dynamics that that you spoke to that are structural, right? And so you have a lot of debt, particularly in the US that needs to be rebalanced. You have a new Fed chair coming in. You have Trump, like we talked about Trump, a new Fed chair, what rates to be much lower. You have geopolitical attention still heightened and rising. I don't think we're quite there yet in terms of investors appreciating the fact that Bitcoin is a risk off asset that it's outside of the system. But I do think we'll get there at some point. So it'll be more favorable in in times of geopolitical attention, which I think you made the case will be for a while. So I'm encouraged. I I do think sentiment's still in the gutter as it relates to Bitcoin, but that's typically a sign to buy. Yeah, maybe one last thing. In my book, I look at 10 different major financial events, geopolitical events and you mentioned that is it the risk of assets? So I can tell you it's in both cases, the short run and the longer run. So when things calm down a bit, it's the best performing asset toss. So the whole thing it's it's like NASDAQ on on steroids. It's just plain wrong. So in all of these ten major events, and these are major, Bitcoin comes out on top. Now that does not mean it's not a risky asset, but to put it away as being the most full of Tau and it always goes down the most when something major happens. That's just that's the objective. Data says that is not the case. Good. So your room. Thank you for your time today. Where would you like people to check out the new book? What's What's the best place to hand them off to you? Yeah, we have a website greatrebalancing.com and from there you can click on the link and it will take you to the Amazon at your location, wherever you are in the world. So I think that is the that is the easiest, easiest part. Just go to the website createsbalancing.com and from there you will know what to do. Well, thank you. It was great to have you back on the shelf. OK. Yes, thank you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the show. If you found the information valuable, please share the episode with a friend or leave a rating on your favorite podcast app. All the links we discussed in today's show will be in the show notes inside your podcast app. Before we finish, a quick reminder that Onramp Media is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and nothing should be construed as investment or legal advice. Regardless of where you are on your Bitcoin journey, we'd love to hear from you. 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