Retail may need sufficient time to forget the pain of the 2022 FTX collapse and previous cycle losses, suggesting the short recovery between 2022-2023 was not enough time for retail trauma to heal

Ohio State University convocation speaker received boos when making marginally pro-Bitcoin statements, showing mainstream sentiment that Bitcoin is a scam asset that went to zero when Sam Bankman-Fried got jailed

The question 'Is this cycle different?' is debated but historically resisted, with the two things causing confusion being Solana's rapid outperformance and Bitcoin ETFs pulling forward price appreciation earlier in the cycle

There is tension between short-term and long-term performance: some founders like Sergey and Larry (Google) made massive long-term investments (laying submarine cables) that would be punished in public markets but created structural competitive advantages 20 years later

Peter Thiel and others argue enlightenment was actually a retrenchment because it eliminated religious/transcendent thinking, replacing it with pure economics, and now people are reverting to religious thinking as reaction to economic nihilism.

TLT (20-year Treasury ETF) implied volatility is near lows at 14 with skew suggesting puts are expensive relative to calls, indicating investors are positioned excessively bearish on bond markets while actual volatility remains low

In real terms, credit investors are doing poorly because while nominal credit spreads are tight, they are losing all purchasing power to inflation, making the nominal strength in credit misleading

During the 2020 financial crisis, the Fed opened a facility to directly buy corporate credit (not just treasuries), a major policy shift that may have permanently narrowed corporate credit spreads by creating tail risk that the Fed will bail out credit markets

Next leg up in global liquidity and risk asset prices will come when the Fed signals rate cuts, possibly in July if inflation data softens, or later depending on data

US 10-year real yields (nominal minus inflation) at 210 basis points are highly correlated with USD strength, so as real yields fall, the dollar should fall, and money should flow into European markets

US economy is much stronger than other developed economies right now, attributable partly to higher government spending, but this is partly counteracted by potential soft austerity during the election period when no bills will pass

Biden administration indicated it would veto the repeal of SAB 121 rule, which requires custodians to record customer digital assets as liabilities on balance sheets, making it impossible for custodians to hold digital assets

If stimulus is to be unleashed before the election, it requires financing, which creates constraints on the administration's ability to simply 'print' stimulus packages, making the timing and sequencing of stimulus uncertain

DAX and Euro stocks are making new highs on expectations of a global easing cycle, suggesting European markets are pricing in Fed cuts and European ease, and the dollar has likely peaked

Meta's stock tanked on guidance about huge capex investment despite good earnings, demonstrating that public markets punish long-term investment spending in favor of near-term EPS, creating incentives for companies to stay private

Trump issued NFTs and held a Mar-a-Lago event where NFT holders received audience rights, with attendees including Celsius, AI Feldman (ThousandX), and other crypto figures, and Trump gave unambiguous pro-crypto statements

Macro factors (liquidity, interest rates) now explain Bitcoin and crypto movements much better than on-chain halving cycles, suggesting crypto has matured to trade as a macro asset class

Trump's statement 'I love crypto but my favorite is the dollar' is a comedically perfect response that acknowledges crypto support while maintaining plausible deniability about commitment

Obama's joking description of killing Osama bin Laden ('we shot him in the head...beautiful, like a dog') is an example of comedians/politicians effectively using dark humor to make serious topics culturally palatable

Student loans feature extreme leverage (e.g., 60k salary against 400k debt) that would be impossible to obtain for any other purpose, creating a moral hazard where it's only student debt where governments allow this kind of leverage structure.