Dee

Quantitative Trend Following Investor | Macro & Liquidity driven | Crypto & Tech | Learning to build wealth and awareness simultaneously

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Insightful! Recommend a watch / read detailed AI summary

- AI: dominant near-term tech/capital trade
- Crypto: stablecoins have achieved real product-market fit
- BTC (crypto) = med/long term investment still
- AI agents eventually become a major source of blockchain demand.

[Alex LaBossiere @laboss]

What happened to crypto?

I sat down with Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), Managing Partner at Dragonfly, to find out.

We spoke about digital dollars, nationalized banks, bubbles and speculation, Iran and BlackRock, jaywalking, and beanie babies.

0:00 – Intro
1:23 – What Happened to Crypto?
3:18 – Stablecoins and Escape Velocity
7:04 – Bitcoin, Gold, and the Generational Trade
10:34 – War and Stores of Value
15:06 – Retail, Nvidia, and Capital Flight
18:23 – Stablecoins 101
20:00 – Eurodollars, Venmo, and AI Agents
23:00 – Dollarization and the Black Market
25:28 – Banks, Airwaves, and the Balance of Power
31:20 – Too Many Currencies
36:11 – Institutions and Cypherpunks
40:08 – Iran and BlackRock
41:00 – Speculation and Bubbles
43:12 – Prediction Markets and the Overton Window
51:04 – Skin in the Game and the Rational Voter
54:06 – Staying in Crypto
57:13 – When Crypto VC Ends
58:57 – What Would Change Haseeb’s Mind on Crypto
1:03:00 – What Should More People Be Thinking About?

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

US 7, 14 & 21 week liquidity Trend: Flat -> Reflexing Up.

Positive this week
- Fed balance sheet, TGA drawdowns

IMO
- Continue crypto DCA crypto (6/12month),
- Consider thematic AI investments such as AI + biotech (ARKG), memory (DRAM) for mid-long term time horizons as well

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Great intuitive explanation on how gov uses TGA + debt management to reduce pressure on long term bond yields.

Lower yields = Stock valuations ↑, Mortgages ↓..Risk assets become more attractive and investors move down risk curve (crypto, ARKG, and other high beta assets.)

[Macro Liquidity by Sunil Reddy @Macrobysunil]

Today’s news: Treasury may start using its nearly $1 trillion TGA cash balance to fund bond buybacks.

Here is what that actually means.

The TGA — Treasury General Account, is basically the U.S. government’s bank account at the Federal Reserve.

Normally the flow is simple:

Taxes + Treasury borrowing
→ cash enters the TGA
→ government spends that cash
But Treasury is now considering using part of that cash balance to buy back long-duration government bonds from the market.

Suppose Treasury has $950B sitting in the TGA and decides to use $100B for bond buybacks.

The flow becomes:

Treasury buys $100B of long bonds
→ TGA falls by $100B
→ that cash moves back into the banking system
→ bank reserves/liquidity rise
→ long-duration Treasury supply held by the market falls

So Treasury achieves two things at once:

Liquidity goes up Pumping markets
duration pressure goes down
And this is where it gets interesting.
Treasury does not necessarily have to issue $100B of new bills at the same moment.
It can use the existing cash first.

That means:

Buy long bonds today
→ relieve pressure on the long end
→ inject short-term liquidity
→ wait for calmer market conditions
→ issue bills later to rebuild the TGA

So in effect, Treasury is using the government’s bank account to buy time.

It is separating two transactions that normally happen together:

support the bond market now
finance/replenish the cash later

This is still not QE.

The Fed is not creating new money.

The TGA cash already came from previous taxes and borrowing.
Eventually, if Treasury wants to rebuild the TGA balance, it has to issue more debt again.
So the full cycle looks like this:
Long-duration bonds bought back
→ TGA cash released
→ liquidity injected
→ long-end supply reduced
→ bills issued later
→ TGA rebuilt
The end result is effectively a shift from:

long-duration debt → short-duration debt

But the timing matters enormously.

If the 20Y or 30Y bond market is under stress, Treasury can use the TGA as a temporary shock absorber, rather than dumping more issuance into the market immediately.
That gives Treasury more control over:

when debt is issued
where duration sits
when liquidity is injected
when liquidity is drained

So the government is not solving the debt problem.
it is being shifted forward and shortened in maturity.

More bills mean more refinancing risk and greater dependence on stable short-term funding.

And if Treasury increasingly has to manage duration and liquidity to keep long yields contained, pressure eventually moves toward the Fed.

That is the path toward fiscal dominance, financial repression and a weaker fiat system.

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

I assigned higher probability to the bottom range due to:
- BTC price (log) with respect to the power law
- Avg Z score of tech,onchain, macro metrics. We bottomed at avg ~1.33 std below mean in 2022 & 2026

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Strong improvement in the Trend Composite Index (TCI): 0.829 vs 0.424 prev | NEUTRAL -> RISK ON

As a result, I'm now fully allocated in my trend portfolio (& I was already in my DCA portfolio)

Very low probability now of touching downside liquidations around $57K IMO

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Good take. IMO being a smart investor entails seeing how the world is transforming & where you can allocate capital to be exposed to these (positive) changes.

AI was the prevalent theme last year: crypto tokenization + better AI (and robotics) is what I'm excited about next

[Kyle Reidhead | Milk Road @KyleReidhead]

I actually think this is a bad take

In the last year AI completely changed the macro world, how business works, how consumers use the internet, etc.

Taking the time to learn how an arguably more important technology will change the world and impact crypto is a huge advantage

sure, things changed in crypto the last 9 months too but nowhere near as fast as in AI

I would argue your time was better spent maintaining your knowledge base in crypto while accelerating your knowledge base in other technologies

I think those who did that rather than beating the same dead horse in crypto for the last year are much better positioned to invest and understand where crypto is heading

ps no shade to Michael, guy is as sharp as they come. I just want to point out that there is no harm moving outside your bubble

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Quite agree. Any investor doing it long enough (like 2-4 years) learns that the markets seldom reward mass consensus. Which is why being systematic about your investments is the best way to do it IMO. Whether its DCA, quantiative trend following or a usually a hybrid approach

[Micro2Macr0 @Micro2Macr0]

If only someone would have said that most people would be left sidelined waiting for the October drop.

But no one did so here we are. 😆

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

7, 14 & 21 Week US liquidity bottoming / inflecting upwards again.

This has largely cushioned BTC price action and now supporting its upwards movement

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Trend Composite Index (TCI): 0.424 vs prev -0.204 | NEUTRAL -> RISK ON

Easing pressure on yield + crypto positive regularatory news are 2 factors I believe are behind this leg up.

Large liquidations around $57K still exist, however probability of them being hit has lowered

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Not that I use fractal analysis as much but the 1W price action with respect to power law bands is strangely similar to 2023 bottom lol.

Regardless it was evident BTC was (still is) in a bottom range with good DCA opportunities with 6/12month horizon!

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Great explanation

[TreasuryBonds.com @TreasuryBonds1]

The U.S. Treasury just doubled the maximum size of certain long-term bond buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.

Long-term yields immediately fell.

But 99% of investors don't udnerstand what this ACTUALLY means-

Here’s what is actually happening: 🧵

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Another post to understand this better
https://t.co/9jPC2eCXqV

[Adam Livingston @AdamBLiv]

This is how the sovereign debt machine starts eating its own tail.

Treasury issues enormous quantities of new debt to finance the government.

That supply pushes against a bond market already demanding higher yields.

Higher yields make the existing $40 trillion debt load progressively more expensive to refinance.

Treasury is effectively swapping old, less-liquid bonds for newly issued debt rather than creating bank reserves.

America has accumulated so much debt that the government now has to actively manage the marketability of its own previous borrowing while simultaneously borrowing trillions more.

Bitcoin continues to be the greatest idea in the world.

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Positive for risk assets. Not liquidity injection per se BUT its financial conditions easing

Lower long yields = reduced discount rates, better equity valuations, and eventually better global liquidity through lower credit spreads etc

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: The US Treasury announces it will double the size long-term US government debt buybacks following the rapid surge in US Treasury yields.

Repurchases of $2 billion will now be increased to "at least" $4 billion, the US Treasury said.

The move is intended to provide "liquidity support" for bonds maturing in 10 to 30 years as total US debt nears $40 trillion.

There is the intervention we have been calling for.

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Use this prompt to understand this news better

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Interesting insights on the space/defense infrastructure

Also on tokenization as a way to be exposed to private companies and its validation as the next natural evolution of financial rails

[1000x @1000xPod]

The first Space Race was a symbol of power projection.

Great powers flaunting capabilities. Civilian technology emerged as a byproduct.

Today’s Space Race is fundamentally different.

It is no longer symbolic. Space is where power *is* projected, not a symbol of it, and technological leapfrogs are no longer byproducts.

We were excited to dive into space markets and how investors are navigating the Space Race 2.0 with @ETFwunderkind, who has explored the theme extensively.

[Napoleon Hill @napoleonmastery]

No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Excellent read on making riskier and more more rewarding decisions (earlier the better)

[a16z @a16z]

.@cdixon on "Climbing the wrong hill":

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Insightful! Proprietary analysis on his customers reveals seller exhaustion. A singular but imp datapoint / evidence of seller exhaustion + BTC in bottoming range

IMO still good to DCA BTC w 6/12month horizon $/or SOME exposure to MSTR/ASST to take advntage of volatile upside

[Ledn @hodlwithLedn]

Why gold on a bitcoin platform. Our investment grade bond. Venezuela after Maduro. Mau covers all of it plus more with @natbrunell

https://t.co/1b8nUCYI38

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Quite right, AI (and search) lets you converge on these "truths" or best average estimate on any topic quite quickly if you know intuitively how to filter for quality knowledge sources aka people who have expertise/success in the subject matter

[immad @immad]

Another advice on advice:

When trying to get to some underlying truth on a complex subject. Here is a rough process I use:

1. Talk to an expert
2. Understand their position
3. Talk to another expert and if there answer is different repeat expert 1s answer to them

Repeat steps 1 to 3 between 3-5 experts till you start converging to truth.

If answers are consistently differently and irreconcilable then you are near an unknown.

[Dee @MrHippopopalous]

Great analysis. Have been saying we’re in a high time frame bottom range with good risk/reward ratio

IMO best to DCA into your crypto allocation with a 6/12 month time horizon

[Charles Edwards @caprioleio]

Hello there. Institutions are net buying Bitcoin again for the first time since May. Treasuries have stepped back up to the plate. Can it hold?