Spent my morning reading this recent speech from @SecScottBessent. It lays out a new and defining vision for America's role in the economy for the next 100 years. @elerianm calls it a "remarkably important speech." Bessent organizes his vision around five principles. Principle 3 is, "America will write the rules of the next economy." He gives one example of what this means: "Digital assets, stablecoins, tokenization, and new payment systems will help to shape the future of money. The United States should not consign itself to the sidelines while that future is built elsewhere." If you've wondered how committed Washington is to making crypto succeed in the US, that tells you something.

The conspiracy theories are wild. First it was Binance and then it was Wintermute and then it was an unknown offshore macro hedge fund and then it was paper bitcoin and. today it is Jane Street and next week it will be someone else. The real reason bitcoin is down is that a bunch of people who were long Bitcoin sold their Bitcoin exposure. They sold it via spot, they sold it by unwinding leveraged positions, and they sold it be writing calls against their bitcoin. They sold because of the four year cycle and because of quantum fears and because they wanted to invest in AI start ups and for other reasons. They are mostly done selling and we are in the process of bottoming. We will set new all time highs in the future. This is a classic crypto winter and there will be a classic crypto spring. People want someone to blame — I get it — but the reality is far more boring than that.