• 🧠Quote(s) of the week:
• 🧡Bitcoin news🧡
• 💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
• 🏦Banks:
• 🌎Macro/Geopolitics:
• 🎁If you have made it this far, I would like to give you a little gift:

§🧠Quote(s) of the week:

‘Bitcoin mean reversion is a restoring drift. It is like a beach ball held underwater. The trend is the equilibrium. Price gets pushed around by news, leverage, liquidity, and panic. Important concept: But the farther it gets stretched from the power law trend value, the stronger the expected pullback. That is the logic of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process: dz = -κz dt + σ dW The first term is the restoring pull. The second term is the noise. Most people see the noise and think there is no structure. Wrong. Noise does not remove the anchor. It just makes the path messy. Bitcoin reverts because large deviations create stronger restoring drift. The path is chaotic. The pull is not.’ - David Eng

§🧡Bitcoin news🧡

Photos hosted by Azzamo ( https://azzamo.net/)

On the 3rd of March:

➡️Ray Dalio: “Bitcoin does not have privacy. Central banks are not gonna wanna buy Bitcoin. Quantum computing. Who owns it?” Bitcoin’s transparent ledger is a feature. Banks are already buying. Quantum is not an imminent threat.

‘Dalio’s mistake here is that he doesn’t fully understand why central banks own Gold. The reason it is Gold is to protect against a speculative attack on their currency if Gold becomes demonetized. Central banks have always viewed Gold as a potential competitor to their sovereign currencies. Once Bitcoin reaches the same scale as Gold (it will overtake Gold due to its significant comparative advantages), central banks will be forced to own it for the same reason they own Gold. Without ownership, their national currency becomes vulnerable to a speculative attack from Bitcoin.’ - Vijah Boyapati

➡️Bitcoin is up 2% while Gold is down 3.5% aGoldilver is down 8%. Feels like a paradigm shift. - Joe Consorti

➡️Important Point: Bitcoin has NEVER had its FULL, complete bull market EVER, while the PMI was below 50 the whole time. Which really begs the question: Was what happened over the last few years really a true bull market? Sminston coined the term “quasi bull market,” and I think that is accurate. We have discussed this on the Bitcoin Uncharted weekly show. We had a bull market on a price basis; you could technically call it that, but with bear-market conditions in the backdrop. Hence, we had a quasi-bull market, or a prelude to a bull market. The full bull market is still to come.

➡️The Bitcoin ETF buyer cohort is sitting on their largest levels of unrealized losses, and I don’t think they care. They may be built differently. Watching for a big week of inflows despite being underwater.

Vijah Boyapati: “The explanation is that boomers buy Bitcoin as a part of a diversified portfolio. They may buy 2 or 5% of their assets as BTC, so a big drawdown has little impact. Their position sizing allows them to hang tough essentially forever.”

➡️’Bitcoin is replacing Gold. The model on the chart says: log10(Ratio) = -16.6829 + 5.7340·log10(t) with R² = 0.9593. If that trend continues: Parity with Gold around 2037 Implied BTC price ~$2.06M.’ -David Eng

At the moment, Gold is stalling out while bitcoin is soaring. BTC is set to overtake Gold’s % growth over the last month as the U.S. economy accelerates and risk sentiment improves. The anticipated risk-off → risk-on rotation could be underway.’ - Joe Consorti

➡️’One more week until the 20,000,000th bitcoin is mined. The remaining 1,000,000 will take 114 years.’ - Joe Consorti

On the 4th of March:

➡️’Since the strikes on Iran began, bitcoin has outperformed stocks, bonds, and Gold. Does that automatically make Bitcoin an undisputed hedge against geopolitical risk? Not by definition. Yet, so far, bitcoin’s price behavior resembles what we have seen during previous major market shocks. In my book, The Great Rebalancing, I examine the performance of equities, bonds, Gold, and bitcoin following nine significant market events since 2020. Both 10 and 60 days after each event, Bitcoin was, by a wide margin, the best-performing asset class. Gold ranked second, while bonds delivered the weakest results. Based on this admittedly limited sample, Bitcoin is not the anomaly. Gold is. If measuring asset class returns 10 and 60 days after a major market shock qualifies as one legitimate lens through which to assess bitcoin’s safe-haven characteristics, then the conclusion is at least open to debate rather than dismissal.’ - Jeroen Blokland

➡️Fernando Nikolic: ‘Wait a second… hold on. The European Central Bank just published a paper warning that stablecoins could pull deposits out of the banking system. Read that again… slowly. A central bank is openly concerned that people might withdraw their money from banks and move it into stablecoins. The very people running the monetary system are admitting — in their own research — that their product might be outperformed by a better one. This is the music industry in 2004, warning that people might prefer MP3s over CDs. The diagnosis is correct… But the conclusion will be predictable: regulate competition rather than improve the product. I’ve seen this playbook before at Universal Music, back in 2008, the threat assessment was always accurate… The response was always protectionism. And protectionism always loses.’

➡️’Another solid inflow day for the bitcoin ETFs. Almost all are now net-positive YTD. Amazing, considering it’s down 22% on the year, a 50% total decline. Crypto Twitter: call your parents, tell them thank you, and that you love them, and that you totally underestimated their hands.’ - Eric Balchunas

➡️Jamie Dimon: If you want to be a bank, be a bank Kraken: challenge accepted

Bitcoin exchange Kraken becomes the first crypto bank to receive a Federal Reserve master account. This makes Kraken the first digital asset bank in U.S. history to gain direct access to the Federal Reserve’s payment infrastructure. The same banking system that tried to choke out Bitcoin companies is now bending the knee.

➡️’The CFTC just announced it’s fast-tracking approval of Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts in the U.S., targeting approval within the next month. Perpetuals are the single most traded instrument in crypto. Binance alone handles over $50 billion in perp volume daily. But since 2017, regulatory uncertainty has forced virtually all of that liquidity offshore. CFTC Chairman Selig said it plainly at the Milken Institute: “We’ve got to bring that back to the United States.” The Commission is also promising clear guidance on on-chain markets and digital wallet regulations. This is a market structure shift. The U.S. has spent years pushing crypto trading to foreign exchanges with less oversight and zero tax revenue. Now they want the liquidity back, and they’re moving fast to get it.’ -TFTC

➡️Walker: ‘If you bought $1 of Bitcoin every time Peter Schiff tweeted about Bitcoin (p~1,836 times since 2013), you’d have ~0.174 BTC today — cost basis $1,836, current value ~$11,500 (at ~$66,000/BTC), for a ~525% gain. If you bought $1 of Gold instead every time he tweeted about Bitcoin, you’d have ~0.45 oz — cost basis still $1,836, current value ~$2,300–$2,400 (at ~$5,070/oz), for a ~25–35% gain. Thank you for your attention to this matter.’

➡️Morgan Stanley issues new SEC filing for a spot Bitcoin ETF, announcing Coinbase and BNY Mellon as the custodians. The key takeaway is: Morgan Stanley would not be launching their own Bitcoin ETF — in a world where 11 other Bitcoin ETFs have existed for 2 years — unless MS believes that Bitcoin will be a persistent % allocation across its wealth management client base.

➡️Daniel Batten: Paraguay has just followed the lead of Bhutan, using wasted hydro energy to mine Bitcoin, for a likely National Bitcoin Reserve. “Reports indicate mined Bitcoin will likely be held as a state asset or the national treasury, potentially used to fund infrastructure.”

➡️Michael Saylor’s Strategy is estimated to have bought over 700 Bitcoin so far today via STRC. That is more than the number of BTC that will be mined today.

On the 5th of March:

➡️A Bitcoin Policy Institute study tested AI agents across 9,000+ financial scenarios. What did they choose most often? Bitcoin. - Simply Bitcoin

➡️Daniel Batten: New academic paper demonstrates that pairing Bitcoin mining with greenhouses can: transform Bitcoin mining’s waste heat into a resource for “advancing sustainable food production”, while “enhancing food security” amid population growth “reduce reliance on fossil fuels, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance the economic sustainability of food production” “reduc[e] energy consumption by up to 15%” The paper is the 23rd to demonstrate the positive environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining. Source: https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2007095059963949217 This paper was published in Applied Energy, which is a highly regarded journal in energy engineering, sustainable systems. It has an impact rating of 11.0, consistently ranking in the top tier in its categories. Source: https://sciencedirect.com/journal/applied-energy Paper co-author Cornell Professor Fengqi You is a multiple award-winning scientist specializing in the fields of energy systems engineering, optimization, sustainability, digital agriculture, and decarbonization (source: https://duffield.cornell.edu/people/fengqi-you/)

Full Paper: Energy optimization of bitcoin mining integrated greenhouse with model predictive control - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261925009869

more Daniel Batten:

➡️In 2021, a headline like this on the front page of a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper would’ve been unthinkable, but backed up by data from Cambridge, Duke University + 23 peer-reviewed studies showing Bitcoin mining’s environmental benefits, the media have changed their tune also.

Little-known fact: 7 Nations (that we know of) are now using Bitcoin mining on their national, or State, grid to counterbalance the variability of solar and wind generation. This allows them to add more renewable energy to their grid than they otherwise would have been able to.

Japan, Finland, Sweden, Texas, U.S. (ERCOT), New Zealand (Monowai), China, Austria - a lesser-known one (https://carboncredits.com/is-bitcoin-mining-the-unexpected-solution-to-europes-energy-challenges/)

On the 6th of March:

➡️’Bitcoin funding rate is still in negative territory.’ -Bitcoin News

➡️’The number of Bitcoin non-zero addresses hits an all-time high of 58.5M.’ -Bitcoin News

➡️Wicked: 5.74M bitcoin currently sits in UTXOs whose keys or scripts are exposed on-chain. Next, I’ll analyze how much of it is still being actively managed. I’ll define “actively managed” as either: • receiving ≥1 BTC in the past year, or • spending any amount in the past year.

➡️’Alex de Vries took 3 years to be proven wrong about Bitcoin. Ray Dalio only needed 3 days. 3 March. Ray Dalio: “Central banks are not going to want to buy Bitcoin.” Today, 6th of March…’ - Daniel Batten

➡️’Kazakhstan central bank to invest up to $350M in digital assets; likely to include Bitcoin

Will begin ‌in ⁠April-May Total central bank FX reserves and gold = $69B Investment will come from Gold & FX reserves fund, not the sovereign wealth fund.’ -Matthew Sigel Source: Kazakhstan central bank to invest up to $350 million in crypto assets | Reuters

➡️TFTC:‘Fidelity Digital Assets just published a research report arguing Bitcoin’s classic four-year boom-bust cycle is over. Their core finding: Bitcoin’s market cap hit $2.5 trillion at its October 2025 peak, but one-year realized volatility reached a new all-time low of 17 in January 2026. That’s never happened this soon after new price highs in any prior cycle. The demand structure has fundamentally shifted. Public companies and spot ETFs now hold nearly 12% of the circulating supply, with most of that accumulation occurring after 2023. 49 public companies each hold over 1,000 BTC. The leading ETF reached $75 billion in AUM in under 2 years. GLD took nearly seven years to reach the same milestone. On-chain, MVRV has remained around 2x realized cap throughout this bull market. In 2013, it hit 6x. In 2017 and 2021, it hit 4x. If it reached just 4x this cycle, that implies a $4.5 trillion market cap and roughly $225,000 per BTC. Fidelity also created a new metric, the “Profit to Volatility Ratio,” which has remained above 0.015 since late 2023, the longest sustained period of stability in Bitcoin’s history. Even the February 2026 drop below $70,000 didn’t break it. The implication: the 80% drawdowns and blow-off tops may be a thing of the past. What replaces them is a slower grind, higher with shallower pullbacks. Bitcoin is behaving less like a speculative bet and more like a maturing macro asset.’

Source: Is Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycle Over? https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/research-and-insights/bitcoins-four-year-cycle-over?ccsource=owned_social_four_year_x

➡️As mentioned below in the segment Macro/Geopolitics: The world’s most POWERFUL money manager just locked the doors. BlackRock’s $26 billion private credit fund told investors: “You want 9.3% of your money back? We’ll give you 5.” Take it or leave it. That’s $1.2 billion in withdrawal requests, nearly half denied. But this isn’t just BlackRock. Blackstone’s $82 billion credit fund just processed a RECORD 7.9% in redemptions.

Simon Dixon is spot on: ‘The real draining of the swamp is converting your BlackRock Bitcoin ETF to Bitcoin in self-custody. Same with Gold. Same with Silver. Drain the swamp.’

➡️In just 4 days, 20 million $BTC will be minted. After that, the remaining 1 million BTC will be mined until 2140. This is what true scarcity looks like

➡️Gold Stuck in Dubai Is Being Sold at a Discount as War Widens. Gold is being offered at a steep discount in Dubai, as the war in the Middle East grounds flights and hampers suppliers’ ability to move bullion out of the key trading hub. Many buyers have stepped back from new orders, unwilling to pay exceptionally high shipping and insurance costs with no guarantee of prompt delivery. As a result, rather than paying indefinitely for storage and funding, traders are offering discounts of as much as $30 an ounce to the global benchmark in London, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named discussing market information. Many shipments remained stranded on Friday, the people said, although some bullion had been loaded onto flights leaving Dubai from the middle of this week. (Bloomberg)

Dubai imported over $100B of Gold and became a global bullion hub. Now, traders are selling Gold at a discount because disruptions to flights, shipping, and insurance make it hard to move. That’s the difference between physical money and digital money.

➡️Update from VVD minister Heinen: the planned Box 3 tax will not be materially adjusted. In reality, it has been little more than a political appeasement measure.

Source: Brief aan Eerste of Tweede Kamer - Wet werkelijk rendement box 3 https://open.overheid.nl/documenten/a9e9b56d-a358-43f3-aa3e-b803483e6dda/file

Bitcoin Jack: Remember when the Dutch said they cancelled the Box 3 unrealized gains tax, 3 weeks after accepting the law in the House? They did not. It’s going to the Senate with minor changes. Just a little distraction detour ahead of the local authorities’ elections. The looting will continue.’

For the Dutch followers: Heinen verraste coalitie en ambtenaren met belofte vermogensbelasting aan te passen na ‘brede ophef’ - NRC https://archive.ph/1KtNH

Anyway, buy Bitcoin, vote with your feet (if that is even possible).

➡️The Winklevoss have sold over 99,000 BTC since 2014. Arkham Intelligence on-chain data shows the Winklevoss twins bought ~100k-120k BTC in 2013 (1% of supply) and now hold only ~10% of that (~11k-12k BTC, worth ~$1.3B). They’ve sold/transferred the rest—over 99k BTC—mostly 2018-2023 to fund Gemini ops and diversification.

Pledditor: ‘The rate at which the Winklevoss twins have been dumping BTC has been accelerating. Not a good look when the exchange CEOs are rushing for the exits. Didn’t they just IPO? Why liquidate personal BTC holdings when they can dump $GEMI shares?’

On the 9th of March:

➡️History has been made. 95.2% of bitcoin’s total supply, some 20M BTC, have been mined into circulation. 114 years for the remaining 4.8% to be mined. - Joe Consorti

There are officially fewer than 1,000,000 BTC left to be mined. The vast majority of the supply is already out there, and most people still have zero bitcoin.

➡️Mark Moss: Bitcoin had 24% CAGR over the last 4 years, even though BTC’s price is the same… $67k. How’s that? While Bitcoin’s price is basically the same as it was 4 years ago, it ignores 2 things

1. Capital Deployment: most are paid weekly or bi-weekly and direct a % to investments, DCA.
2. Volatility is the DCA investor’s friend: The magic here is that Bitcoin didn’t just sit flat at $67K for 4+ years — it experienced massive volatility in between

Let’s put some math and numbers here… Let’s use a $1k/week DCA amount for illustration. As Bitcoin started at $67k and then fell to $16k in 2022, there was a swing of over $109,000 between the low and the high.

That volatility is what worked for you: your $1,000 weekly buys scooped up BTC at $16K–$25K, accumulating far more satoshis per dollar than when prices were high. Half of your total invested capital went into above $50K, but that only bought 25% of your Bitcoin. Meanwhile, just 30% of your capital deployed below $30K bought 53% of your total stack. That’s DCA at its finest.

§💸Traditional Finance / Macro:

On the 5th of March:

👉Hard assets are set to outperform. Looking back 100 years, whenever nominal GDP growth was rising, money rotated from growth to value, or from asset-light to asset-heavy. These cycles took 10–20 years to play out. The current cycle began in 2026 and has years to go.

👉‘The Dow Jones Industrial Average extends losses to nearly -800 points on the day as U.S. oil prices surge to a fresh 13-month high.’ - TKL

§🏦Banks:

👉🏽No news

§🌎Macro/Geopolitics:

On the 3rd of March:

👉🏽Regular reminder that there are vast natural gas reserves in Europe. The reasons Europe is dependent on LNG from Qatar and America are political.

👉🏽‘Spanish dude in the Netherlands goes viral after revealing that 90% of his staff in NL is Spanish. Spain is a hellhole for young people; any job that pays €2,000 in other EU countries pays €1,100 in Spain, while rent & food are the same price as in those countries. Meanwhile, the socialist Spanish government is doing everything it can to make sure jobs in Spain pay even less, and the exodus of Spaniards continues, by handing out citizenship like candy to 1M+ “refugees” and illegal immigrants.’ - BowTiedMara

European politicians claim they need migration to fill labor shortages. But the vast majority of 3rd-world migrants don’t work. They go on welfare for the free stuff. So Europe gets the worst of both worlds. They don’t have workers, but they have all of the crime and welfare costs.

👉🏽Former President Bill Clinton: “I was much closer friends with Ghislaine Maxwell than I was Jeffrey Epstein - because she was friends with the Rothschilds and I was close to them.” Ffs Bill, I don’t think you’re supposed to say that out loud!

On the 4th of March:

👉🏽The Netherlands: Tax-free gifting to children under fire: the government is being advised to cut back this fiscal advantage. If I understand correctly, civil servants argue that tax-free gifting — as an expression of solidarity between parents and children — is no longer the case. In doing so, they dismiss what is arguably one of society’s foundations. A deeply troubling mindset: a bureaucracy constantly searching for new revenue streams to fund policies that ordinary citizens and small businesses never asked for.

Abolishing tax-free gifting to your own children? How about starting with the 45,000 charities with ANBI status (public-benefit organizations) — including political parties. They pay no gift or inheritance tax, and donations are tax-deductible. A multi-billion euro system.

Raise the inheritance tax for charities to 30% instead of 0%, and reduce it for children to 0%. That would be a fair adjustment. There is no convincing reason why charities should pay no inheritance tax, while children do. Meanwhile, civil servants at the Ministry of Finance are proposing to reduce tax-free gifting to children. Jan Struijs (50PLUS) responds sharply: “Gifting is the glue that holds society together.” Henk Vermeer (BBB) has a message for the civil servants: spend less — or step down.

To sum it up:

• Housing prices are unaffordable for many — especially Gen Z and (single) millennials
• Building wealth is increasingly difficult due to Box 3 taxation
• Financial support from your parents? Not really — more of it now goes to the tax authorities.

Truly an inspiring outlook.

👉🏽Qatar is set to fully shut natural gas liquefaction today, two sources close to the matter say. Restarting natural gas liquefaction after a complete shutdown would take 2 weeks. Once restarted, Qatar would need at least another 2 weeks to reach full capacity. Qatar is the 2nd largest LNG exporter in the world. - TKL

On the 5th of March:

👉🏽’Cabinet Jetten (before the elections: “we will deliver tax relief”):

• Taxes on capital gains
• Higher gift taxes
• A new “solidarity contribution.”
• VAT increases
• Flight taxes
• Shorter unemployment benefits and a higher retirement age

In short: higher taxes and heavier burdens — instead of the promised relief.’ -R. Genis

👉🏽The European Union needs “less and less decision-making by unanimity”, says Rob Jetten, the new prime minister of the Netherlands. “We cannot explain to our constituents that Europe is sometimes way too slow in reacting to great issues that affect us all,” he said in Brussels.

He should have said that before the elections. Just a thought!? What he says: no more vetoes for the countries and all power to the EC.

Undermining the principle of unanimity means that, in practice, legal rules can be imposed on a member state without its political authorities’ approval. That is a direct blow to democracy and national sovereignty.

The European Union is a club of member states that have agreed to integrate their markets. It is not a state, and the ancient nation-states that comprise it are not mere provinces to be overruled by a political core. Member States should retain a say over the rules they sign up to. To fail to do so is to cede their sovereignty to a body that is not truly accountable to their citizens.

👉🏽‘Gold prices have now risen for 7 consecutive months, the longest streak on record. Over this period, gold prices have risen by 61%, or nearly 9% per month on average. By comparison, the previous best was 6 consecutive months, seen in the early 2000s and the 1970s. Meanwhile, the largest physical gold-backed ETF, $GLD, attracted +$3.8 billion in inflows last week, the 3rd-largest on record. This falls only below the previous two record weeks of ~$4.0 billion, both posted in 2025. We are truly in unprecedented times.’ - TKL

👉🏽‘U.S. oil prices surge to their highest level since January 2025, now trading above $78/barrel. Oil prices are up 43% since December, with U.S. gas prices rising rapidly. The cost of shipping crude oil from the U.S. to Asia is skyrocketing: It now costs over $29 million to hire a supertanker to take 2 million barrels of crude from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China, the highest on record. Shipping rates have DOUBLED in just two weeks. This means shipping alone costs ~$14.50 per barrel, or a record ~20% of the oil price at current WTI levels of ~$75. The cost of a supertanker as a percentage of the WTI crude oil price has quadrupled since August, from ~5% to ~20%. This comes as the ongoing war in the Middle East has effectively shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, forcing Asian buyers to turn to U.S. barrels. Many supertanker bookings to load crude from the U.S. Gulf Coast have already been canceled over the last 24 hours as costs become unsustainable. Oil supply chains are under historic stress.’ - TKL

On the 6th of March:

👉🏽’Selected metals/major miners vs the S&P during the last bull market:

• Copper 500% - copper miners 45:1
• Silver 1100% - miners 13-20x
• Gold 600% – miners ~20x That’s what operating leverage looks like.’ -Lukas Ekwueme

👉🏽‘Kuwait has begun cutting production at its oil fields after running out of room to store its bottled-up crude oil, per WSJ. Details include: 1. Kuwait is discussing limiting production to just what it needs to cover domestic consumption 2. A decision on those broader cutbacks is expected within days, sources say 3. Once production is shut down, restarting production can take days or even weeks 4. Kuwait’s ~2.6 million barrels of oil production per day appear to be at risk. Oil storage in the Gulf countries is nearing maximum capacity.’ -TKL

👉🏽France: “Only 43% of recent non-European immigrants of working age are employed. That is 25 percentage points lower than in the general population. Excluding pension payments (which are age-related) and even unemployment benefits, immigrants receive on average twice as much in social benefits as people without a migration background.”

👉🏽’3 of the 4 big Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar) are discussing withdrawing from U.S. and other investments as the toll from the war with Iran mounts, per FT. Details Include:

1. “Budget strains” are reportedly mounting due to reduced income from energy, shipping, and tourism
2. Countries could reassess investment commitments to the U.S.
3. The move would be viewed as a “precautionary measure.”
4. Moves that jeopardize U.S. investments could “pressure.” President Trump Over $2 trillion in U.S. investment appears to be at risk.’ -TKL

👉🏽’Two facts for you.

1. Next month in the UK, the minimum wage for workers aged 18 to 20 rises 8.5%, after a 16% increase last year.
2. …’ - Alex Deane

You think the two are connected?

👉🏽The Spanish Tax Office informs newlyweds that they must pay Gift Tax on wedding gifts. Source: Indemnización de hasta 96.000 euros para los trabajadores enfermos en incapacidad permanente por exposición al amianto The fines are:

• 50% of the undeclared amount up to €3,000.
• Between 50% and 150% of the unreported amount when it exceeds €3,000.
• Up to 150% of the undeclared amount for very serious offenses involving fraudulent practices.’ - BowTiedMara Another socialist attempt; Your money is broken!

👉🏽 U.S. oil prices are on track for their largest weekly gain on record in data going back to 1982, now up +34.5% this week.’ -TKL

👉🏽BlackRock’s $26B private credit fund is limiting how much investors can pull out, capping withdrawals at 5% even though investors asked for 9.3% Blackstone’s similar fund processed a record “7.9% OF SHARES” of withdrawal requests this week, with the firm and employees covering the rest. BlackRock falls 4% at the open. A $26 billion fund with withdrawal limits is not a footnote. That’s the kind of thing that starts a sentence with ‘looking back, the signs were there. Bill Eigen at JPMorgan said, “bad news often happens all at once” in private credit. This is a $1.8 trillion industry, and right now, the 3 biggest names are struggling to return investors’ money.

More on Blackstone below: 👉🏽‘Blackstone just used $400 million of its own money to pay investors trying to leave its $82 billion private credit fund. Redemption requests hit a record 7.9% of the fund, blowing past the standard 5% quarterly cap. Net outflows: $1.7 billion. The world’s largest alternative asset manager is now plugging holes with its own balance sheet to meet withdrawals. It’s not just Blackstone. Blue Owl permanently froze redemptions on a retail-focused private credit fund two weeks ago. Across the complex, stocks are cratering from their highs: Blue Owl -61%, KKR -44%, Blackstone -43%, Ares -42%, Apollo -39%, Carlyle -25%. RA Stanger is forecasting a 40% decline in BDC capital formation for 2026. Meanwhile, forensic accountant Tom Gober has been documenting how Apollo, KKR, and Brookfield have been using captive insurance subsidiaries to funnel policyholder money, often retirees’ annuity payments, into illiquid private credit that’s never been stress-tested in a downturn. The 777 Partners fraud was the canary in the coal mine. UK mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions collapsed last week, rattling Wall Street lenders. Reuters cited that collapse directly in its reporting on Blackstone’s redemptions. This is spreading across borders and asset classes. Blackstone’s Jon Gray went on CNBC and called it “a ton of noise.” It’s not noise. It’s $3 trillion in private credit, discovering that getting in was easy, but getting out is a different story entirely. These are the same firms that manage your 401(k), your pension, your life insurance, and tell you Bitcoin is “too risky.” - TFTC

👉🏽1. The 2nd-largest monthly job loss since the pandemic. 2. Oil prices up 60% in 4 months to a new 2-year high. 3. Gas prices have increased by more than +20% since December 2025 4. US PPI Inflation unexpectedly rose to its highest since July 2025 5. 10Y Note Yield up +20 basis points this week 6. $600B+ in expected AI investment from Magnificent 7 companies in 2026 Own assets or be left behind. - TKL

👉🏽‘Metals and miners have recently pulled back as investors suddenly think the Fed won’t be as dovish. Wait until they realize the policymakers are cornered into cutting rates regardless of Inflation accelerating, to keep the government’s debt affordable. That’s an explosive setup for metals.’ - Tavi Costa

On the 7th of March:

👉🏽Europeans were told they needed to import millions of foreigners to come work, keep the economy going, and pay for European elderly pensions. Reality: 3rd world foreigners came, got on the welfare system, and 90% of them didn’t work at all. Europe didn’t get the cheap workers, but they are paying for all of the expenses of supporting millions of deadbeats. Europe’s economies are stagnant, and national debt is surging as foreign colonizers extract vast amounts of resources. - WallStreetMav

👉🏽‘Asia is the most dependent region on oil and natural gas flows from the Middle East: ~90% of all crude oil transiting the Strait of Hormuz is destined for Asia.. And, ~82% of LNG exports from Qatar and the UAE flow to Asian buyers. China alone receives 38% of all oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, followed by India at 15%, South Korea at 12%, and Japan at 11%. Furthermore, for Japan and South Korea, over 60% of their total oil imports are transported via Hormuz, making them the most vulnerable to supply disruptions. For Asia, the Strait of Hormuz is an energy lifeline.’ -TKL

👉🏽’Gold Stuck in Dubai Is Being Sold at a Discount as War Widens Gold is being offered at a steep discount in Dubai, as the war in the Middle East grounds flights and hampers suppliers’ ability to move bullion out of the key trading hub. Many buyers have stepped back from new orders, unwilling to pay exceptionally high shipping and insurance costs with no guarantee of prompt delivery. As a result, rather than paying indefinitely for storage and funding, traders are offering discounts of as much as $30 an ounce to the global benchmark in London, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named discussing market information. Many shipments remained stranded on Friday, the people said, although some bullion had been loaded onto flights leaving Dubai from the middle of this week. (Bloomberg) - Tracy Shuchart

👉🏽Remember when the Dutch said they cancelled the Box 3 unrealized gains tax, 3 weeks after accepting the law in the House? They did not. It’s going to the Senate with minor changes. Just a little distraction detour ahead of the local authorities’ elections. The looting will continue.

👉🏽‘The Dutch government has unfortunately got investors’ hopes up for nothing 😠 What remains unchanged: A tax on unrealized gains stays in place A 36% tax rate (among the highest globally) remains No Inflation adjustment No increase in the tax-free allowance So the core problems remain: Lower-income investors may be forced to sell assets in strong market years to meet their tax obligations. Situations will arise where people pay tax despite a real loss in wealth — for example, when returns are lower than Inflation This new Box 3 system hardly aligns with the European Commission’s goal of improving Europe’s investment climate. The only minor positive: loss offset rules are slightly improved. However, they remain insufficient — carry-back should be extended to at least 10 years, not just one.’ - Niels Koerts

Source: Brief aan Eerste of Tweede Kamer - Wet werkelijk rendement box 3

👉🏽’Most people think oil is just oil. It’s not.

• US WTI: ~40° API (light, golden)
• Iran Light: ~34°
• Russia Urals: ~31°
• Venezuela: ~8–12° (almost tar)

The lighter the crude → the cheaper the refining → the bigger the profit. Quality drives oil politics.

Refineries are like machines tuned for a specific crude input. Too heavy → efficiency drops. Too light → blending needed. Feed the right crude → margins improve. Oil markets aren’t just about barrels. They’re about molecules.’ - Ashish Kumar Meher

As mentioned above, there is another layer to the oil story: Around 20% of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Japan ~75% dependent India ~50% China ~45%. So, oil markets aren’t just about the quality of crude. They’re also about geography and chokepoints. One narrow strait can move global prices. Source: Edelweiss

👉🏽Michael A.Arouet: ‘Everyone understands that closing German nuclear power plants was the most irresponsible economic and geopolitical security decision. Now look what closing nuclear but keeping coal did to the climate. Can you name something more absurd and damaging than Germany’s energy approach?’

On the 9th of March:

👉🏽TFTC: ‘Children are disappearing from the global population, and the math is staggering. As a percentage of the world’s population, children aged 0-14 are roughly half of what they were a generation ago. This isn’t isolated to rich countries. Birth rates are collapsing everywhere. The cause is structural. The fiat economy pushed both parents into the workforce. Housing, childcare, and education are inflated beyond what a single income can support. A family of four on one salary went from standard to impossible in less than 50 years. Then layer on the cultural rot. Gambling apps. Pornography. Social media is designed to replace real connections with dopamine loops. A society that celebrates careerism and treats parenthood like a liability. The result: an entire civilization quietly choosing extinction. A sound money standard starts to fix this. When your labor gains purchasing power over time instead of losing it, having children stops being a financial death sentence. Families aren’t a luxury under hard money. They’re the default. The fiat experiment didn’t just debase the currency; it also undermined the currency’s value. It debased the birth rate.’

And remember, it is all about demographics.

§🎁If you have made it this far, I would like to give you a little gift:

What Bitcoin did: Bitcoin is Undervalued, But the Bottom Isn’t In Yet | Rational Root Is Bitcoin’s four-year cycle still intact, and what does that mean for the next six months? In this episode, I sit down with The Rational Root to break down where we are in Bitcoin’s cycle, why on-chain data is flashing bear market signals despite Bitcoin holding up through the Iran war, and what the bottom formation could look like from here. We discuss the shift from retail hype to institutional adoption, why OTC buying from ETFs and treasury companies dampened this cycle’s price action, how gold and AI stole Bitcoin’s mindshare, and whether passive flows from the likes of Saylor could prevent another leg down. Root walks through his key on-chain charts and explains why he thinks there’s still a probability of one more drop before Bitcoin starts its next move up.

Click here: https://youtu.be/tBAA2TtoxWU

Credit: I have used multiple sources!

My savings account: Bitcoin. The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan is PocketBitcoin, especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. (from now on, full KYC, so be aware)

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Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node…be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It’s that simple. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ Is this post helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with a zap. ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃ ⭐ Many thanks⭐ Felipe - Bitcoin Friday! ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃