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Follow On The Margin On Spotify: https://spoti.fi/46WWQ6T Follow On The Margin On Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3UsnTiM Follow Blockworks Macro On YouTube: https://bit.ly/3NKpujX -- This week, Jonah Van Bourg Director at Onyx & Former Global Head of Trading at DRW joins the show for a discussion on his 2024 outlook for both commodity and crypto markets. We deep dive into Jonah's Bitcoin thesis, the U.S debt end game & the outlook for an Ethereum ETF in 2024 & beyond. To hear all this & more, you'll have to tune in! -- Access liquidity on centralised exchanges through Copper’s off-exchange collateral management and settlement solution. To find out more about ClearLoop visit: https://bit.ly/3SnJI5r -- Follow On The Margin: https://twitter.com/OnTheMarginPod Follow Jonah: https://twitter.com/jvb_xyz Follow Mike: https://twitter.com/MikeIppolito_ Follow Blockworks: https://twitter.com/blockworks_ -- Digital Asset Summit 2024. Use Code: MARGIN10 for a 10% discount. https://blockworks.co/event/digital-a...
Research, news, data, governance and models – now, all in one place. As a listener of On The Margin, you can use code "MARGIN10" for a 10% discount when signing up to Blockworks Research https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ -- Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 05:05 Trading Crypto & Commodities 14:03 Copper Ad 18:04 Macro Outlook In 2024 28:22 The Debt End Game 31:05 The Bitcoin ETFs 35:55 Das London Plug 37:12 The Bitcoin Thesis 44:53 The Crypto Thesis 48:54 Ethereum ETF 55:18 Final Thoughts -- Disclaimer: Nothing discussed on On The Margin should be considered as investment advice. Please always do your own research & speak to a financial advisor before thinking about, thinking about putting your money into these crazy markets.
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Jonah van Borg argues that crypto and commodities markets are fundamentally convergent due to shared trading mechanics and economic dynamics, and that Bitcoin represents the most compelling long-term investment of the current era driven by currency debasement, geopolitical fragmentation, and institutional adoption via ETFs, while most other layer-one tokens are early-stage technology plays best held long-term rather than actively traded.
- Crypto and commodities share identical skill sets (discipline, quantitative rigor, ecosystem curiosity) because both are early-stage decentralized networks of fungible assets
- Bitcoin ETFs unlock institutional capital flows not through day-one euphoria but through slowly-deployed professional allocation, creating durable demand that compounds with rate cuts and dollar weakness
- The endgame of fiscal excess and debt-to-GDP trajectory is either managed inflation around 4-5% or currency substitution toward non-sovereign digital alternatives like Bitcoin
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Technological innovation historically drives social and economic change more durably than local policy makers, who typically fight innovation; therefore the long-term trajectory of crypto adoption is more dependent on crypto's technical superiority than on regulatory environments
“there's this very long history of the Arc of change of History being decided by not local policy makers who almost always to a te fight it but technological change over the long uh technological innovation drives change over the long term”
Macro trading requires stress-testing ideas to extremes rather than focusing on incremental data points, because individual data releases (Empire manufacturing, consumer confidence) are overwhelming and not useful for learning; instead, understanding extreme scenarios (like debt-to-GDP reaching 500%) reveals underlying mechanisms.
“macr trading and now as a you know somebody who's traded credit FX uh you know oil precious metals and crypto I I definitely have a macro mindset um just having traded all these markets there's this just spectacularly enormous Matrix of data that's getting fed to you through a fire hose every day you know you mentioned in in the last sentence Empire manufacturing consumer confidence like yields dollar if there's a lot right and it's overwhelming for most people so I think the best thing to do like the way that I try to learn new markets is I try to um stress test ideas to their extremes”
Open permissionless decentralized systems (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) are valuable because they allow transacting parties who don't trust each other or whose governments disagree to move value peer-to-peer without censorship; this is fundamentally important for human freedom and should not be eroded by over-institutional KYC-heavy layers
“I believe that the open permissionless uh system that crypto creates I like I'm not a techno Anarchist I'm not one of these people that's like anti- kyc but I I do think that it's useful to have an open permissionless decentralized uh sort of Internet of money because like I was saying earlier on the podcast it allows people you know people who don't necessarily agree with each other to transact right and I think that's important for Humanity and I I do believe in that from a like from the perspective of a Commodities Trader who shifted oil from you know Nigeria to China uh like I I believe that people should have access to to trades with people that other people that they don't necessarily agree with or that their governments don't agree with”
Another barrier to Bitcoin adoption is volatility: many people cannot psychologically stay invested in volatile assets and panic-sell at lows; this is why van Borg recommends retail investors simply 'hold' Bitcoin rather than trying to trade it.
“another reason is just the volatility a lot of people can't seem to stay in this [ __ ] trade and that's why you know on Twitter I'll just recommend like don't don't trade just hold on look at something else”
Crypto is fundamentally a commodity because tokens like Ethereum can be mined as inputs (like crude oil) and refined into useful services (gas fees, NFTs) that produce value in downstream systems, making them economically equivalent to physical commodities rather than equity-like cash-flowing assets
“eth in 2021 you could buy it or you mine it and of itself the you know ether token isn't particularly useful but if you refine it via effectively spending a little bit of it as gas uh you can basically turn it into a useful product or a service... crude oil in and of itself isn't particularly useful either uh until you refine it into all these amazing things”
The US has systematically deferred austerity since 2008 through stimulus instead; this austerity has not disappeared but is embedded in an over-levered economy, and policymakers cutting rates now are continuing this 'fiscal cavity' rather than addressing underlying imbalances.
“things are probably running a little bit hotter than they should be the austerity that we should have eaten in 2008 and again in 2020 but instead we just stimulus ourselves away from that austerity like it this hasn't gone away it's just living inside of our our over levered economy and now they're cutting rates again right they're cutting rates which means that that like the the pracy is effectively just continuing”
The U.S. fiscal situation with debt-to-GDP now at 120+ percent is unsustainable; if it reaches 500 percent, the dollar will likely lose reserve currency status and be displaced by a mathematics-based currency like Bitcoin that central banks worldwide adopt as an alternative store of value
“what happens if that goes to like 500% what then right um I I don't know but it the the one thing I do know is the price of Bitcoin is going to be $10 million a token because the the whole economy is just going to be so over levered and chaotic that the dollar probably won't be necessarily the most trustworthy Global Reserve currency anymore maybe in that scenario you have a math-based currency that everybody's sort of accepted as as digital gold maybe that'll uh maybe that'll be getting adopted by central banks around the world”
Jack Bogle (founder of Vanguard and ETF pioneer) stated that 'Commodities are a real losers game... in the long run they have no internal rate of return. You buy a commodity, gold is a good example. You're betting you can sell it to someone for more than you paid for it,' representing the investment community's general skepticism toward commodities.
“there's actually a really great quote Eric baluna shared this from Jack Bogle about why he's not not a fan of Commodities and this this is the quote from Jack Bogle Commodities are a real losers game he told me in the long run they have no internal rate of return you buy a commodity gold is a good example you're betting you can sell it to someone for more than you paid for it”
Van Borg returned from crypto trading at DRW to commodities trading because of a significant opportunity and because regulatory heat on professional crypto traders is concerning, as some of his competitors are in problematic legal situations.
“I came back to Commodities recently because of a pretty phenomenal opportunity that I got offered that sort of allows me to put together some of what I learned at Vall and and what I learned at drw uh as well as the fact that if you're crypto trading you know the regulatory heat in the kitchen is pretty noticeable so uh that's a that's a that's pretty scary you know I think you look at some some of my competitors in the you know Global head of trading at crypto shop type categories and some of those people are in uh you know in in situations I would and I want to put my family through”
The Federal Reserve pivot from 'higher for longer' to imminent rate cuts (despite inflation only recently coming down) is irresponsible because it continues monetary accommodation without addressing underlying over-leverage and over-employment, mortgaging younger generations' futures to realize Net Present Value gains accumulated by Baby Boomers over the last 15 years
“ultimately I think I I do think that it is irresponsible I mean I think that ultimately you know nobody wants to hear this but they should really just cause a cause some you know some sort of a small recession We're we're overemployed right now we're over levered they if they were running the country like they you know like intelligent people run a business you would want to sort of pay down the debt um you know cause things to slow down a little bit and stop mortgaging the future of younger generations to you know basically pay out pay out the The Net Present Value that a bunch of Boomers have just uh accumulated over the course of a spectacular bull run over the last 15 15 or so years so since the financial crisis”
The Bitcoin halving (April 2024) represents a stock/flow effect: if miners currently sell X Bitcoin per day and cut that to X/2 after halving, selling pressure decreases while buying demand remains, creating upward price pressure over time.
“another part is the having so that's just a stock and flow problem if miners are selling X Bitcoin per day and then after April they're selling x divided by two Bitcoin per day that's you know against the backdrop of of however much buying has been supported you know ingesting that that selling over the course of all these years that bitcoin's been around you know the theoretically the buying flows are still there and the selling flows are Havoc so you know that's that's that's another component to this bullish thesis”
Political incentives in Washington structurally prevent responsible fiscal policy because elected officials are rewarded for stimulus (vote-friendly spending in districts) and face no consequences for debt accumulation, while unelected officials also avoid accountability, leading to a persistent inflation target around 4-5% instead of the stated 2% and continuous asset price appreciation
“nobody in Washington has an incentive not to run it hot no one no one gets builded for you know too much debt no no one no one no one gets sorry no one gets like billed in the sense that they get kicked out of their elected office this right they they get rewarded for splashing money in their districts and their their jurisdictions and on their you know constituencies they don't get punished for mortgaging future Generations uh you know payout so ultimately I think that that where this all goes because you mentioned the word endgame where this all goes is the incentive system in Washington continues to churn out this sort of like all right we're not going to let things run insanely hot to the point that we get fired but also like our inflation Target isn't really 2% ever again we're going to more synthetically have it be like four or five percent”
Regulatory hostility toward crypto trading is not rational or justified from a systemic risk perspective, but reflects political bias; commodities trading receives no comparable scrutiny despite similar leverage and counterparty risk, making crypto a uniquely risky professional career path
“also there's a lot less risk professionally trading Commodities than there is professionally trading crypto um I I don't know why but certain Regulators don't like crypto but they don't really give a [ __ ] about you know what you're doing in uh in gas oil swaps so you know yeah it's almost like it's not 100% logical so yeah doesn't follow 100%”
The optimal personal strategy in an environment of rate cuts and persistent fiscal stimulus is to borrow at floating rates (not fixed) and deploy that leverage into real assets—real estate, Bitcoin, S&P 500—because nominal asset prices will rise as the dollar weakens and the capital structure re-leverages
“to me that just means B borrow and buy borrow and buy real estate borrow and buy Bitcoin don't not with too much leverage though borrow and buy um borrow and buy the S&P 500 like um it it to me it just seems like uh one of those you know pay floating though don't pay fix don't lock in current interest rates like just borrow uh in ways where you you can get more levered as as yields come back down”
Most altcoin and L1 projects outside Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana have terrible UX, lack genuine user adoption (beyond speculation), and don't represent meaningful innovations over existing off-chain systems; they should be treated as high-risk option plays, not core investments, and should only be considered if there's a plausible case for real system adoption
“I I think you're supposed to look at this the entirety of crypto like helium and hyp mapper like let's call a spade a spade for all the hype you see on crypto Twitter and on telegram the Deep you know if you're digging deeply into the space you are an extreme Fringe minority right most of the world does not give one flying [ __ ] about this technology or what it can do they're interested in digital gold they're interested in owning a bit of the world the world's future decentralized computers and they're not like using these chains to accomplish anything that that they can't do outside of these chains the ux is terrible um you know it it just doesn't to me it isn't like something that you can play without a real system you know if like so I'm kind of sitting back and waiting for users to come frankly it's risky and a lot of the valuations don't make a lot of sense”
Against the backdrop of expected rate cuts and easier monetary policy, commodities have tailwinds from a weaker dollar, but supply capacity constraints mean commodity prices may not spike to Ukraine war crisis highs despite demand strength.
“against the backdrop of I think what what everybody expects to be a declining interest rate environment this year you know Goldman just came out and said they expect Vibe rate Cuts this year uh you kind of have this Tailwind for Commodities right easier monetary policy means weaker dollar means stronger Commodities so does that mean that all Commodities are just going to explode to the you know sort of Ukraine war highs that they had during these like big inflationary Supply shocks of 2022 well no right there's there's plenty of spare capacity meaning that producers of Commodities like crude oil they could produce a little bit more they're not maxing out right now there's plenty of oil in tank uh there's plenty of gas being held you know under the ground”
What makes crypto valuable is both the technology (efficient value transfer) and the ethos (permissionless access), but you don't always need to invoke both in every application—some use cases only need the tech, others need the ethos, and crypto can serve both.
“it's the tech and the ethos together that make crypto uh so useful to society and you don't always need to be invoking both in some sort of like higher philosophic agenda does that make sense”
Commodity market volatility creates alpha opportunities for traders because the investment community stigmatizes commodity returns (viewing them as zero-drift asset classes that don't always go up), leaving profit opportunities on the table for disciplined traders who can time cycles and trade both long and short sides
“there's often this stigma around it right from the investment Community which is it doesn't always go up which provides this fantastic opportunity for Commodities traders to get in there and actually understand the fundamentals and time and and buy low and sell high and and earn those returns that the investment Community leaves behind because it isn't quite that easy”
Bitcoin ETFs will drive billions of dollars in institutional inflows not through a single euphoric spike on day one, but through steady dollar-cost averaging by financial advisors managing private wealth, who rationally spread allocations over weeks or months to avoid concentration risk and reputational damage if they buy at a peak
“if you think about the way that like in the private wealth space inflows tend to work is you you receive a cash flow from something right you sell your company or you get a big bonus at work or or something like that happens and then the way that like a private wealth manager will allocate that to the market they won't be like okay great yeah you know you made this money so let's just stick it all in the stock market all at once normally they'll sort of like spread it out over over a few weeks or months uh you know know just so that you aren't exposed to like one one bad price right they don't no one wants no one wants to be responsible for investing all of a client's money in something at the absolute High Point”
The skill set overlap between commodities trading and crypto trading is substantial and includes discipline to manage risk despite constant market distraction, quantitative/technical rigor to understand supply-demand fundamentals, and bottom-up curiosity about ecosystem architecture rather than top-down assumptions
“number one is discipline and that's that applies to any Market you have to be an extremely disciplined person because every 15 seconds the Market's gonna either try to distract you or do something to your p&l... thing number two that I think is really consistent across both markets is you have to have a very technical and... a quantitative bent... finally I think the thing that's that's most important um that that's sort of at the intersection of you know Commodities and crypto is just this um this sort of eagerness and curiosity to solve the Puzzle”
The mega-volume trading activity in Bitcoin ETFs immediately post-launch is more significant than headline inflow numbers because it signals that institutional trading firms (hedge funds, HFT shops) that previously lacked trading infrastructure can now efficiently trade spot Bitcoin, unlocking trapped alpha in a highly liquid new commodity
“what did surprise me and what I think is far more pertinent is the Mega volumes that went through in these contracts and I think what that tells you is like hey trafi wants to trade Bitcoin they haven't really been able to that efficiently until now which I I totally could see it at drw we had our own like massive massive mountain Everest of technology and you know legal protections and you know tentacles into every possible little pocket of the market to make sure that we could trade spot effectively and safely and in a you know professional manner so that we we could survive all the craziness right like most institutions don't have the time or the patience or or you know they weren't in early enough to build all of that now they don't have to now all the rails are there for them”
Geopolitical fragmentation into Orwellian hemispheres (US-led NATO bloc vs. China-Russia-Iran bloc) creates strife and unsafe trade passage; the dollar gets weaponized through sanctions, so an alternative currency that permeates both hemispheres and is acceptable to both parties is needed, and Bitcoin fits that role.
“the slow drum beat of um geopolitical kind of conflict and the division of of the the you know the global trading ecosystem into these kind of orwellian hemispheres that that we're seeing China and Russia banding together with Iran and a few other countries that are an antithetical to United States and the United States sort of creating its own NATO fom um you know somewhere in the middle there you have you have a bit of strife and you know lack of safety of passage for ships ultimately like commodity trade Lanes sometimes need to go in between these in between these hemispheres of influence and increasingly the as the dollar gets weaponized like you need a new effectively a new currency that can perforate these hemispheres that's acceptable to both Waring you know counterparties Bitcoin”
Ethereum and Solana have a reasonable probability of becoming 'world computers' (decentralized computing infrastructure), and if that occurs, buying and holding these tokens at this stage is economically equivalent to investing in early-stage AWS but decentralized, making them worth portfolio allocation
“ethereum and salana I think they have they both have a relatively you know as good a chance as any of becoming World computers and in that world you know if you have like a chance to invest in the early days of Amazon web services but a decentralized one that people might want to use for slower but perhaps more important transactions uh that can be public or or private or or you know shielded however like if you think there's a high probability of adoption we're still early enough that buying one of those and hanging on for deer life it's kind of like kind of like uh oil in the late 1800s”
If retail crypto investors want to participate in meme coins and altcoins, they should do so by explicitly treating it as entertainment/gambling (like a casino night) with small capital, rather than pretending it's a serious investment strategy.
“if you're going to go into this meme world treat it like the casino that it is if you're like I'm gonna crack open a beer sit in front of my computer when with 10x leverage I'm just going to have meme coin night at the at the casino like that's okay right at least you're playing a game for entertainment and you don't expect to make money if you're actually trying to like like you know set aside your friends and your loved ones and your day job to like attempt to turn this into a sustainable source of income like good good luck it's just not gonna work”
Oil in the early 1800s exhibited the same boom-bust volatility, speculation, and price discovery chaos that crypto exhibits today—with villages constructed and abandoned within months as supply shocks (gushers) hit the market, making Bitcoin's long-term trajectory analogous to oil's multi-decade rise from early speculation to foundational commodity
“it was exactly like crypto is today boom bust very shortterm very speculative there these description of entire you know Villages basically being constructed in this span of a couple months you know everyone's gambling speculating all this stuff and then there'll be news of like a gusher a bunch of Supply coming online prices will tank the whole industry will go out”
Bitcoin is fundamentally different from Layer 1 chains like Ethereum and Solana because Bitcoin serves the money-like role, whereas L1s are computing platforms; therefore Bitcoin has an effectively unlimited ceiling while L1s face eventual saturation.
“so if what we're seeing here maybe Bitcoin is the one example of something that's actually more money-like and and so there isn't as much of a ceiling on it but let's say there's this other shorter and longer tale of other layer ones like ethereum or Solana or you know now you've got Celestia as new examples of commodity like things”
Even if Bitcoin's reserve currency adoption is only 1 percent of global trade (up from approximately 0 percent today) within five years, the price per Bitcoin could reach $500,000 just on that denominator effect alone, without requiring 80 percent reserve currency status
“we could go from zero basis points of global trade being denominated in Bitcoin to like 1% in the next five years and you know the price of a Bitcoin is $500,000 just on that alone”
Watching someone turn $1 million into $1 billion through a Bitcoin position is psychologically harder for traders to accept than watching someone turn $10 into $100,000 on a meme coin, because the large position demonstrates that further gains are possible for bigger players.
“I think if it's like somebody put 10 bucks into a bunk and then that 10 bucks is worth you know a hundred grand um you know I I think that's it's it's hard to replicate that person's success but you know other times you can watch you can watch somebody put like a million dollars into Bitcoin and turn it into a billion dollars and you think Bitcoin could still run and that's that's when your head starts to screw with you a little bit you know”
Van Borg believes crypto is going to be the best investment for millennials and Gen Z on an accelerated timeline compared to oil's development from the 1800s to present, due to the hyperconnected nature of modern society.
“I think everybody not Financial advice do your own research blah blah blah I think you should I think everybody in younger Generations should have a substantial amount of money in crypto in Benchmark crypto based on what it's going to do which is basically what oil did from the you know late 1800s uh until today probably on an accelerated time frame in crypto because we live in a hyperconnected world”
Van Borg expects ongoing GDP growth and productivity gains from AI technologies like ChatGPT will support secular commodity demand growth over the next couple of years, lifting all commodity prices.
“I do expect Society GDP growth continues to you know surprise to the upside I think that productivity gains unlocked by new technologies like chat GPT just making everybody a little bit better at their job you know better research and better know you know better able to code and all these things that creates uh that that creates productivity gains that ultimately enhance society's demand for Commodities um and ultimately like I think that you're going to have this sort of secular uptrend across the commodi space for the next couple years that the rising tide will just lift all all of these different ships”
Most retail crypto participants behave like three-year-olds in markets—driven by emotion, FOMO, and envy (wanting to replicate peers' thousand-X gains on meme coins) rather than discipline, leading them to fail at active trading and lose money chasing narratives
“there's this great quote it's like there's nothing so horrible for your health as seeing your neighbor get wealthy I mean that's what it's like to be a person in crypto and yeah hey I've got this this pile of money and it's more than I thought it was ever going to be but I've also seen this other person that did a thousand X on some meme coin and why did why did they deserve to get that and not me”
Gold's long-term performance since the California Gold Rush of 1849 suggests that engaging with volatile early-stage commodity booms, despite short-term losses from poor timing, has generated substantial long-term returns for investors who stuck with the asset.
“look at what Gold's done since the Gold Rush of San Francisco in 1849 right like yeah okay fine you have some bad times if you get it on the highs you're you're going to face some Financial ruin whatnot but you have to stick with these things you have to time them uh if you're going to play them over the short term and if you play them over the long term uh I think I think crypto is going to be the best investment of uh two generations Millennials and gen Z”
Most layer 1 tokens beyond Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are speculatively valued, so van Borg would treat positions in other tokens as 'flyers' (low delta call options)—small allocations betting on unlikely but very high-payoff outcomes like Helium becoming a decentralized Verizon.
“I would invest in interesting applications like he I Hive Mapper uh anything that allows decentralized compute like if there's even a half a chance of that working like it's it's probably worth in in options trading you call it a flyer you know like a a low Delta call option something that doesn't cost you that much you don't spend much money on it but it could thousand a right like if helium suddenly spins up like a a T-Mobile or Verizon for a fraction of the price like you you want to have some on on the books right probably won't work but if it does like good stuff”
Ippolito has settled on the belief that some investors will never accept commodities or crypto as viable assets without visible cash flows and dividend yields, viewing them through a DCF analysis framework; this is an unfalsifiable position he's made peace with.
“Jonah I'm so with you on this I I I've sort of come to the conclusion that there are just going to be some people that never wrap their head around that or get comfortable with it it's always like I need to see my yield and I need to see my my dividend or my cash flow whatever so I can Model A DCF and you've seen a lot of attempts at that to to do exactly like that with something like ethereum which has always fallen flat to me”
Tokenization of securities (via crypto infrastructure) solves real friction in existing financial systems by enabling t-plus-0 or t-plus-10-second settlement instead of t-plus-2 business days, which in a high-interest-rate environment means trillions of dollars are unnecessarily locked up and not generating yield
“in a world of of non-zero interest rates Mike like transactions like a stock transaction you go and buy IBM stock right sorry you sell IBM stock you don't get your cash until t plus2 t plus2 business days right so that could be like four calendar days if if it's if you sell it a Friday and what that means is like your money is like there's literally something on the order of tens of trillions of dollars locked up that could be getting put to good use in or get earning yield in this world of high interest rates so it matters now right”
Tokenization enables the creation of niche commodity markets (e.g., Agbami crude oil specific to Nigerian refineries) that are too small to list on major exchanges, but can now be spun up cheaply on decentralized networks, allowing producers to directly access consumers without intermediation
“I can spin up a tokenized market for um you know agbami a a type of crude oil that comes from Nigeria if I'm Nigeria and I can trade it with the other refineries around the world who care about agbami and I can link it to the price of agbami which I produce you know literally these Niche markets that no one's ever heard of because the CME doesn't give a [ __ ] about them can get tokenized and spun up Suddenly you can have value transfer between counterparties that care and markets do solve problems right”
Bitcoin ETF approval is NOT a use case for crypto; it's only an investment/trading rails enabler; the real adoption milestone would be society deciding that on-chain transactions are better than off-chain for some application.
“an ETF is not a use case it unlocks crypto rails as an investment and trading vehicle it is not like the world deciding that something is better onchain than offchain right”
Bitcoin is so compelling as a long-term investment that he moved from professional crypto trading to personal buy-and-hold, replacing his work position with personal capital after the FTX collapse, allowing him to capture upside without managing active risk in the now-hostile regulatory environment for crypto
“I saw just the most spectacular bull trade that that I think I've ever seen in my entire career like I I was bullish a little too early I was bullish in parts of 2022 where I shouldn't have been uh I risk managed it appropriately and I got quite long on the lows um in after FTX and then when I realized I was going to be leaving to go back to Commodities I effectively like replaced the position that I had at work with personal capital in my personal account and I I don't really touch it I did that one big trade and now I feel like I'm in the situation where all the relative value relationships in the market I know best which is crude oil are all out of whack”
Professional traders experience a similar psychological challenge as retail investors: even after observing 1500 peer traders outperform them within their firm, they struggle to avoid envy and emotional disturbance, though they work hard to suppress these feelings.
“I mean it impacts me too as a professional Trader you know when I look at some of the fortunes that just total total morons earn and in trading sometimes it's I'm not going to pretend that I have this like sort of monastic Zen uh attitude about it like even after seeing you know 1500 people make more money than me you know just in in the companies that I've worked for like it's it's sort of like you still it still just like messes with your mind a little bit and uh I I I do everything I can to avoid thinking about it but we're all human it's tough”
Van Borg is 'so bullish' on Bitcoin 'I can't see straight' due to multiple reinforcing macro drivers: institutional access via ETFs, the Bitcoin halving (stock/flow effect), rate cuts and dollar weakness, geopolitical fragmentation requiring non-dollar settlement, and potential Bitcoin adoption as the next global reserve currency.
“I I am so bullish I can't see straight for a variety of reasons including these ETFs”
Larry Fink will not build a proprietary 'Blackrock chain' because BlackRock already has its own private ledger system (Aladdin) for internal operations; if Fink pursues public tokenization, it will be as an L2 or application chain built on top of Ethereum or Solana, leveraging existing validator infrastructure rather than building new custody/validation
“I I think he he won't create Black Rock L1 chain I think he'll create Black Rock app chain on top of something related to ethereum or salana because um otherwise what he's doing is basically just black rock chain already exists it's internal to Black Rock it's called Aladdin they're famous for that system and basically that is the back office system that runs Global Finance so if he's just talking about like creating a centralized Black Rock product that that tokenizes Securities and it's just like a PR version of that then you know I just don't think he's full of I don't think he's that full of [ __ ] like I think he's actually I take him at his word when he's when he talks about the promise of crypto I don't think he's just talking about like spinning up a a public version of black Rock's back office and not having it be a decentralized chain and black rock knows nothing about running validators or running nodes or whatever like that that's not their thing”
Sometimes retail 'three-year-old' thinking can be productive: they evaluate ideas with fresh perspective unclouded by expert consensus, which can lead to genuinely smart decisions despite emotional reasoning.
“I think if it's like somebody put 10 bucks into a bunk and then that 10 bucks is worth you know a hundred grand um you know I I think that's it's it's hard to replicate that person's success but... I guess good for the three-year-old retail investors on Twitter sometimes just please stop trading like okay if you're going to go into this meme world treat it like the casino that it is if you're like I'm gonna crack open a beer sit in front of my computer when with 10x leverage I'm just going to have meme coin night at the at the casino like that's okay right”
U.S. fiscal deficit is running at annualized rate of approximately $2 trillion, representing 'absolutely bananas' fiscal profligacy given it's occurring during an economic expansion
“we're running extremely high fiscal deficits I think annualized the the fiscal Q4 number came in at half a trillion dollars so annualized you know in the neighborhood of of you know two trillion $2 trillion doll deficit which is absolutely bananas”
U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio has been running above 100 percent and recently topped out 'a little bit above 100%' after World War II, then took three decades to come back down; current trajectory is running 'hot' at 120+ percent
“the debt to GDP ratio was like 30 to 60% for most of you know the last century it it like topped out I don't remember exactly but like a little bit above a hundred after World War II and then you know took three decades to come back down to a normal band now we're running hot we're running at a we're running a debt to GDP of like 120 plus percent”
Crude oil went from $15 per barrel to $140 per barrel during the 2020-2022 period, representing a 10x return in less than two years, demolishing Jack Bogle's claim that commodities are losing propositions that never produce returns
“oil oil during the the you know the sort of 2020 to 2022 uh went from you know $15 a barrel to 140 that's a 10xer in in in less than two years like run your IR on that Jack Bogle right”
Jonah van Borg started his career at Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis, worked as a credit default swaps trader, then moved to Barclays post-bankruptcy, then to Goldman Sachs trading oil derivatives, then to Vitol as a partner for almost 7 years, then to DRW for 2 years as head of crypto and precious metals trading
“I started right out of college at lhan Brothers... then Barclay's bought Leman out of bankruptcy... I made my bread there... then ended up getting stuffed into G10 FX options trading... goldan hired me... to trade uh their crude oil book... a company called Vall poached me in 2015 Vall is the world's largest oil Trading Company and I was a partner there for almost seven years uh until crypto came knocking and that's uh that's what I did at drw I was the global head of uh crypto and precious metals trading there for two years”
The Empire State manufacturing index printed negative 437 (vs market expectation of negative 5), signaling that economic activity leading indicators are deteriorating faster than consensus expected
“a massive you know a leading indicator on the Empire um manufacturing uh service was like printed like a negative 437 or something like that which is one of the they were expecting negative five”
The host (Mike) acquired Bitcoin in 2011 when it was approximately $1 per coin, but did not hold it, regretfully realizing later that this represented a missed multi-million-dollar opportunity
“the first Bitcoin actually that I ever owned was in 2011 so you can maybe take a guess at how I found that big but I didn't hold on to it you know I I didn't it didn't even actually register to me that this would be I was in high school at the time didn't register to me that I would be an investment but it was actually I do remember this because someone described it to me I was like what is this Bitcoin thing I was like it's an internet dollar and the time the price of Bitcoin was a dollar”
Goldman Sachs was specifically looking for an options trader with a track record of gains to trade their crude oil derivatives book (a massive revenue driver), and hired van Borg after his successful trade on the Fukushima disaster
“had a good run on Fukushima that Japanese disaster while I was on the dollar Yen book and then goldan hired me when they were looking for an options Trader who was good and had had a good run to trade uh their crude oil book The Big derives book in New York”
Barclays Capital sent automated emails to Lehman Brothers employees offering temporary employment contracts with binary accept/reject options in the subject line, effectively giving laid-off employees one opportunity to secure work post-bankruptcy
“so we all got an email saying from like Barclay's Capital you know like HR barclayc capital.com like if you would like a temporary offer of employment please reply with accept in the subject line otherwise please reply with the reject so you know unemployed 21-year-old Jonah accepted the offer”
Barclays Capital had to fire approximately 20,000 people over a multi-week period post-Lehman acquisition, employing them temporarily and then laying them off in waves (described as 'The Bobs from Office Space' pattern of mass firings every Friday)
“from like Barclay's Capital you know like HR barclayc capital.com like if you would like a temporary offer of employment please reply with accept... I made my bread there by explaining during the every Friday like The Bobs from Office Space would come in and fire another thousand people because it's a big job to fire 20,000 people right so uh I would reinv for my job every Friday”