Debasement Endgame: Bitcoin ATHs, Gold near $4K, & Bonds Bleeding
Timestamps:
00:00 - Market Breakthroughs: Gold and Bitcoin Surge
02:55 - The Debasement Trade: Shifting Sentiments in Finance
05:43 - Institutional Adoption: The Role of TradFi in Digital Assets
08:51 - Galaxy One Launch: Bridging TradFi and Crypto
11:43 - Yield Products: Evaluating Risks and Opportunities
14:54 - The Future of Financial Metrics: Nominal vs. Real Returns
17:55 - The Wild West of Finance: Embracing Change
20:39 - Bridging the Gap: Crypto Services for TradFi
23:53 - Incumbents Entering Crypto: Walmart and Stripe's Moves
39:51 - The Future of Stablecoins
43:50 - Interoperability and User Experience in Finance
45:33 - Walmart's Role in Financial Inclusion
48:10 - Risks of Stablecoins and Financial Systems
49:44 - The Evolving Landscape of Stablecoin Competition
53:23 - Credit Market Risks and Financial Distortions
01:03:18 - AI's Impact on Venture Capital and Market Dynamics
Institutions are repositioning as hard-money assets rip and digital rails go mainstream. Gold printed $4K while Bitcoin made new all-time highs, putting the "debasement trade" front-and-center and pushing allocators to reconsider gold & Bitcoin as core rather than peripheral. We dug into V1 (incumbent-led) vs V2 (crypto-native) product cycles, white-label offerings rails from Stripe and Binance, Walmart’s One app, and the operational consequences for custody and distribution.
Gold at 4K; Bitcoin at ATH
Gold and BTC are moving together as the top performers YTD, shifting the allocator narrative from a 2% "disaster hedge" toward 20–25% gold & bitcoin stacks at big shops.
Bitcoin historically lags gold before moving "harder and faster" we may be in the early catch-up phase.
Client demand, not ideology, is forcing incumbents to offer exposure as sentiment flips.
The debasement frame is now mainstream, reinforced by headlines from major banks.
Sophisticated investors are now considering holding bitcoin versus any capital expenditure or allocation.
V1 vs V2: Yield, custody, and who wins
Galaxy’s "8% APY" investment note (accredited-only) signals near-term demand for packaged income in familiar wrappers.
V1 advantage = distribution, brand, and compliance muscle; V2 edge = owning the rails and getting closer to the asset.
In a debasement regime, single-digit coupons invite risk-stretching and duration games, scrutinize where the yield actually comes from.
Operational reality: treasury, custody, and controls must look institutional from day one (signing policies, failover, audits).
Expect hybrids first (TradFi wrappers on crypto rails), then progressively more native, infra-owned products.
Interoperable Stablecoins & White-label landgrab
Binance/Coinbase are pushing "crypto-as-a-service" to banks and fintechs; Stripe (post-Bridge) is enabling white-label stables.
Walmart’s One app is moving to embed crypto rails directly into retail payments.
As interoperability costs trend toward zero, the Tether/USDC duopoly looks capped while a long-tail of branded stables rises.
Yield-share competition will compress margins; distribution + float management become the battlegrounds.
UX will increasingly obfuscate coin choice—users will spend "dollars" without noticing which stable they're actually moving.
Credit and AI: hidden risks, big bets
OpenAI–AMD deal: multi-year, ~6 GW deployments with performance-based warrants that can scale to a meaningful equity stake.
AMD rallied on the headline; markets are rewarding AI adjacency even as concentration risk rises.
Q3 venture funding was heavily AI-skewed, with an outsized slice attributed to a single Anthropic round, evidence of extreme concentration.
The "circular financing" worry is real: platform–vendor cross-ownership and incentives can mask weak unit economics.
Consumer/auto-credit headlines flagged loans with attributes identical to existing liens, an example of underwriting slippage that echoes broader credit fragility.
Quote of the Week
"And then you're basically putting your money where your mouth is. … You have to benchmark against gold or Bitcoin." — Michael Tanguma, Early Riders
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