October 12, 2022 • 49 mins
It’s time for some more hits from our YouTube channel to brighten your week. Today you’ll hear all about the recent mini financial crisis in the UK and our investigation into a company that could be poised to dominate the crypto industry.
The UK has a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor of the Exchequer and it’s safe to say they haven’t got off to the most auspicious of starts. Once parliament had reconvened following the period of mourning for the Queen, Chancellor Kwazi Kwarteng announced a so-called ‘mini budget’ that was focused on growth. The only problem was, this involved borrowing billions of pounds to not just cover soaring energy bills, but also to effectively fund a tax cut for the rich.
The markets were unimpressed and the pound plunged. What was more disconcerting however was the state of the UK bond market. The yield on UK gilts (government bonds) shot up, while the price went the other way. As a result, it became much, much more expensive for the government to borrow money. It also meant that UK pension funds became dangerously exposed, all of which is explained in the first part of this episode. It’s a sorry tale and a bitter pill for us Brits to swallow.
Then, in the second part of this episode, you’ll hear all about Circle, the company that is fast becoming one of the richest and most powerful forces in crypto. For those unfamiliar, Circle issues USDC, the second largest stablecoin by market cap. It also has some seriously heavyweight backing from the likes of BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.
Circle has been around for a few years now and began life as a bitcoin-focused payments company before moving into the stablecoin sector. It is also due to go public later this year, which would make it only the second crypto company after Coinbase to take this massive step. Suffice to say, this is a company you need to be aware of.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Producer for iHeartMedia: Noel Brown
Editor: Semir Mutapcic
Theme music composed by: Noel Brown
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode from the
midweek edition of the coin Bureau podcast. Every week, I
pick out two of my favorite videos from coin Bureau's
YouTube channel to present to you in podcast form. The
audio you're about to hear is from those videos I've
chosen this week. Many of you have been in touch
to ask whether it's possible to listen to our videos
in podcast format, and so your wish is my command.
(00:23):
This week, I've selected our videos about the sudden crisis
that recently gripped the British bond market and the company
that could soon come to dominate the entire crypto industry.
It's not been easy being a bridge recently, when our
new chancellor announced a raft of tax cuts just a
couple of weeks ago, financial markets did not take the
news well. The pound dipped to its lowest ever level
(00:47):
against the US dollar, while the market for Guilt's British
government bonds also went haywire. The situation got so bad
that the Bank of England had to step in to
calm the situation with you guessed it, a bit of
good old quantitative easing. The situation has since stabilized somewhat,
but the lesson is clear. Markets don't like to see
(01:07):
a government borrowing even more money at a time when
fiscal prudence should be the order of the day. In
the first part of today's episode, i'd break down exactly
what happened and what could come next. Then in part two,
you'll hear all about a company that's quickly becoming one
of the most powerful forces in the crypto industry. It's
backed by the likes of Goldman, Sachs and Black Rock
(01:29):
and is due to become only the second crypto company
to go public later this year. The company in question
is Circle, issuer of the U S d C stable coin,
and if you haven't heard much about it yet, well
you will. In the second part of today's episode, I
lift the lid on this can of worms and tell
you everything you need to know about what could feasibly
(01:50):
become one of the biggest companies in the world. I
hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and I'll
be back talking crypto with Mike very soon, so be
sure to stay tuned. And if you want even more
content from coin Bureau, be sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel and visit us on social media too. Last
(02:28):
week saw one of the most dramatic meltdowns in the
financial markets for years, and meltdown which could have led
to a complete collapse in the UK sovereign debt market.
It was so severe that it forced the Bank of
England to try and calm the situation by turning the
money printer back on. However, every action has an equal
(02:50):
and opposite reaction, unintended consequences will rear their ugly heads.
In this video, I'm going to explain exactly what happened
and what could mean for the markets going forward. So
don't go anywhere now. I assume that not all of
you have been keeping up to date with UK politics recently,
(03:10):
and to be honest, I don't blame you. So three
months ago, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign,
having lost the faith of the Conservative Party. Why this
happened is beyond the scope of this video, suffice to
say that it had been a long time coming. The
Conservatives then held a lengthy internal election process to determine
(03:31):
who would be the new leader of the party and
hence Prime Minister. Conservative MPs narrowed the field down to
two candidates, who then had to secure votes from the
wider party membership. After a long, bitter and frankly often
tedious battle with former Chancellor Rishie Sunac, Liz Trust won
the election with a total of eighty one thousand votes.
(03:52):
That's right, party members decided the future leader of an
entire country. That folks is democracy, apparently any who. Liz
Julie appointed her cabinet and named a loyalist and close friend,
Quasi Quatanan, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is
effectively the Minister of Finance is akin to the Treasury
(04:13):
Secretary in the US. We Brits are just better at titles. Now,
after a hiatus caused by the death of Queen Elizabeth
and a subsequent period of morning business was resumed, Quasi
unveiled his new mini budget in the House of Commons
and it did not go down well. Now. One of
the most contentious parts of this mini budget was a
(04:35):
tax cut which was overwhelmingly favorable to the rich. Quasi
effectively scrapped the top fort tax rate. Now, this of
course meant that the government would be short of change
forty five billion pounds to be exact. More on that later. Now,
if that didn't sufficiently dent the market's confidence. Then the
energy subsidy certainly did sixty billion pounds worth over the
(05:00):
next six months. However, it's not only the cost that
we would witness over the next six months that's the issue.
It's the cost of this fiscal package over the next
five years. By some estimates, this could be as much
as one hundred and sixty one billion pounds. So the
inevitable question naturally arose, how on earth is all this
(05:22):
going to be paid for? Well, what does anyone do
when they want to spend without earning income. That's right,
they borrow. The thing is that markets are not all
that happy to invest in the sovereign debt of a
country that's becoming less credit worthy. They're also not too
happy to hold the currency of a country that is
likely going to feed further inflation with reckless fiscal spending.
(05:46):
The result was an unprecedented shock to the markets. The
pound hit a near all time low of one dollar
and four cents in the early hours of Monday morning.
It had many people, including myself, wondering whether parity was
on the cards. But the collapse in the pound was
not even the worst of our concerns. That's because the
(06:08):
moves in the guilt market were even more alarming. Now,
for those unfamiliar with archaic British fiscal terminology, guilts is
the term used to refer to British government bonds. It's
a shortening of the term guilt edged securities fact fans. Now,
in the wake of the mini budgets announcement, foreign investors
(06:28):
began dumping their guilts as they digested the news. The
scale of the selling was so bad that it was
the worst day in the UK guilt market since According
to the head of UK rate strategy at HSBC Quote,
the moves in long end yields were nothing short of incredible.
The guilt market was in free fall. As a result
(06:50):
of this sell off, there was an unprecedented rise in
the yield on guilts. Now over here you can see
the charts on the yield of the longest dated guilt
thirty years is it's quite hard to appreciate how crazy
moves like this are in a thirty year instrument. That
this was one for the record books. They went from
about three point six on the twenty second September to
(07:13):
over five the following Wednesday, the highest level in twenty years,
and it's not only the fact that the yield was
reaching such crazy levels, but it's also the speed at
which they were moving. Here you can see the volatility
around these yields. It's pretty crazy. So why is this
a problem. Well, if you were an investor who got
(07:34):
exposure to guilt's synthetically i e. Through derivatives, you would
need to post collateral to fund these traits. But it
was even worse for those investors and institutions that had
entered derivative agreements that were exposed to moves in guilt yields.
The largest investors of this type were those who employed
an l d I or liability driven investment strategy. For
(07:58):
those unfamiliar, this is an investor style that attempts to
hedge out liability exposure. And those with the most exposure
to longer dated guilt yields were pension funds. That's because
their liabilities present value of pension payments are discounted using
applicable interest rates. Now I've linked to some resources that
(08:19):
explain l d I in a bit more detailed down below.
But whereas older ld I strategies just involved holding longer
dated government debt, new strategies involved complicated interest rate derivative
structures in what are called l d I funds. These
included the likes of interest rate swaps, guilt total return swaps, swaptions,
(08:41):
and other complex instruments. Not only that, but these were
leveraged up to four times. This meant that those pension funds,
or indeed anyone who invested in l d I funds,
were exposed to outsize moves in interest rates, they would
need to post collateral as their derivative hedges unwound quit
than they could raise the cash. Now, I know what
(09:03):
you're thinking, Who on Earth structured and developed these ld
I funds. Well, that would be the likes of black Rock,
Insight Legal in General and their ILK. It's pretty crazy
to think that your mum's pension is being hedged by
the likes of these chaps. But hey, this is the
world of fiat finance, folks. It's like an iceberg with
(09:24):
a whole lot of risk lurking beneath the surface. Now,
the point is that pension funds were in a deeply
unfortunate situation as they were forced to post collateral on
derivative trades that no one had anticipated. This meant that
these pension funds had to conduct a fire sale of
their assets in order to free up liquidity to post
(09:44):
this collateral. Apparently, some funds even made calls for cash
to employers backing their plans. According to the Financial Times,
outsourcing groups CIRCO provided sixty million pounds after a request
from pension trustees, something incredibly unusual for such a well
funded scheme. But the rush to sell assets had an
(10:06):
even more perverse effect, a self inducing chain reaction that
could actually have brought the financial markets to a standstill. Basically,
in order to realize that liquidity, these pension funds needed
to sell other assets to free up cash. Well, it
turns out that pension funds hold a lot of guilts
(10:27):
as well. Not only that, but these are among the
most liquid assets they hold and thus some of the
easiest to realize for cash. Hence, pension funds started dumping
their guilts too. This of course meant that there were
further falls in the prices of these guilts and rises
in the interest rates on them. Higher rates, more collateral
(10:49):
calls on leveraged LDI trades, more guilt selling. It's a
spiral of guilt, fire sales and collateral calls. Things were
getting seriously out of hand. There was a legitimate concern
that this could devolve into a full blown financial crisis,
and unlike in two thousand and eight when it involved banks,
(11:09):
this would have involved the one point five trillion pound
pension sector. According to a senior London banker quoted in
the same FT article, quote at some point this morning
I was worried this was the beginning of the end.
He also added that at that time there were no
buyers of long dated UK guilts. According to Karen Rosenberg,
(11:32):
Cardano Investment chief executive quote, if there was no intervention today,
guilt yields could have gone up to seven to eight
percent from four point five percent this morning, and in
that situation around ninety percent of UK pension funds would
have run out of collateral. For reference, Cardano Investments manages
LDI strategies for about thirty UK pension schemes worth roughly
(11:56):
fifty billion pounds in assets, and no nothing to do
with the Layer one blockchain project. Now, this statement was
made as part of a plea to the Bank of England,
the Central Bank of the UK, to intervene in the market. However,
could the bank really step in and do something. I mean,
it was in the middle of a rate tightening cycle
(12:17):
and had stopped its guilt buying program only a few
weeks ago. Well, the fear in the markets was just
too great and caused the Bank of England to warn
of a quote material risk to UK financial stability. It
duly unleashed a sixty five billion pound bond buying program
on Wednesday. In other words, quantitative easing, or in the
(12:40):
parlance of our times money printer go. It was an
unprecedented action for a central bank which had only a
week previously raised interest rates by fifty basis points, A
bank that stated it was committed to fighting inflation, A
bank which now finds itself turning on the printing presses again,
(13:01):
or to clean up the mess that kama Quasi, Kwarteng
and ld I Funds had got us into. Speaking of which,
did you guys know that black Rock threatened to halt
trading for numerous pension fund clients. Yep, It's sent a
memo to clients that it would quote freeze funds more
at risk of assets being exhausted. Trustees at pension funds
(13:22):
mentioned that the actions left pension schemes unable to take
steps to protect their members. Literally, these funds could not
buy or sell assets at that time. Anyway, the Bank
of England's emergency QUEUI was able to bring calm back
to the markets in a pretty dramatic fashion. Guilt prices
(13:43):
rocketed and yields on the instruments fell dramatically. For example,
the third year guilt fell as much as one hundred
basis points on the day. It was the biggest rally
in a single day since in the days that followed
the yields kept on falling and sterling marked a pretty
decent rally. It seemed as if the markets were breathing
(14:05):
a sigh of relief. But at what cost. Well, there's
the immediate question of what impact the mini budget could
have on the UK's economy. It was a pretty ill
thought out plan and has resulted in near universal condemnation.
I mean, even the folks at the i m F
issued a statement rebuking the British government. It said, quote,
(14:27):
given elevated inflation pressures in many countries, including the UK,
we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at
this juncture. Moreover, quote, it is important that fiscal policy
does not work at cross purposes to monetary policy. I
mean the but perhaps most damning of all is that
(14:49):
the i m F said that these measures are likely
to increase inequality, which is indeed true. That's because not
only are the richest people in the country getting tax break,
but the poor are getting a tax hike, not directly,
of course, but through increased inflation. It's already at record highs,
(15:09):
and now you also have to add the impact of
the unfunded fiscal spending. Then you have the pound, which,
given its devaluation, makes imports that much more expensive, pushing
inflation still higher. Now I've spoken to many, many friends
and family members in the UK and they are already
feeling the impact of the falling pound. Moreover, the weakening
(15:32):
pound means higher energy costs, which could even dampen much
of the short term relief derived from those energy subsidies. Then,
of course there is the impact that the actions by
the Bank of England are likely to have. It was
supposed to be fighting inflation and selling guilts in the market. However,
its actions last week ran counter to that policy. Not
(15:55):
only do we now have more money in the system inflationary,
but it also dealt amount sift blow to the Bank
of England's credibility. For central banks, credibility is essential people
build their inflation expectations on the word of central banks.
In August, inflation was already at nine point nine percent,
(16:15):
and there are many analysts who think it could go
into the high double digits next year. For example, City
Bank thinks that if the energy crisis deepens, we could
see inflation at eighteen percent early next year. Just think
about that. What this means is that the Bank of
England is going to have to be even more aggressive
when it comes to hiking interest rates in the coming months,
(16:38):
and that itself has some really adverse implications for the
UK mortgage market. You see, not only did the mini
budget lead to panic in the UK pension funds, but
it also led to mayhem in the mortgage market. Numerous
mortgage providers in the UK started with drawing their products
in the days after the budget. That's because they were
(17:00):
unable to price them amid all the market uncertainty. According
to The Guardian, about of mortgage deals have been withdrawn
during those days when guilt yields were rallying. These fixed
rate mortgages were becoming instantly unaffordable for many of the
smaller banks operating on tighter profit margins. There was also
(17:20):
a flood of applications for these fixed rate mortgages in
the immediate aftermath of the budget. People were scrambling to
secure deals before they were priced up on the market.
According to a mortgage executive quote, I was literally watching
the application numbers by the minute. We saw a threefold
increase in existing customers contacting us. According to Andy Golding,
(17:43):
the chief executive of One Savings quote, there were queues
around Southampton, Row and up High Hope and people wanting
to buy a ten point five percent fixed rate mortgage.
Panic appeared to be gripping the market as people rushed
to try and grab what might be their last aunts
at an affordable mortgage. And bear in mind that not
(18:03):
so long ago ten point five percent would have been
deemed laughably expensive. How things change. However, what really concerns
me is what happens when these mortgage rates reset. You see,
unlike in the US, for instance, where fixed rate mortgages
can be signed for a term of ten to twenty years,
(18:24):
fixed rates in the UK are usually much shorter in duration.
We're generally talking two to five years max. Longer terms
of ten years are available, but less common. What that
means is that once these fixed rate mortgages expire, they
will have to be refinanced at a much higher rate.
And as we know, interest rates are shooting up thanks
(18:47):
to the Bank of England's rate policy. After this latest
mini budget announcement, Bank of America analysts revised their estimates
for base interest rates in the UK to four percent
by August of next year. May I remind you that
the rate is currently at two point to five, which
means that anyone who secured a fixed rate mortgage over
(19:08):
the past two years is going to have to refinance
with much higher mortgage payments. Next year alone, the fixed
rate mortgages of one point eight million households are due
to end now. According to data from Bloomberg Economics, the
cost of a two year mortgage will rise by seventy
by March of next year compared with January of this year.
(19:31):
How many UK homeowners will be able to afford to
refinance at this higher rate with everything else going on?
Could it exacerbate the cost of living crisis and further
squeeze ordinary Brits, all while the rich squirrel away those
supposed tax breaks savings they've been handed. Well, at least
we have our super secure pensions to fall back on. Right. Okay,
(19:54):
time for a few of my closing thoughts now, As
a proud brit watching the fallout from this catast trophic
budget was painful. That's because not only was the aim
to reduce taxes for the rich, but given how haphazardly
it was planned and rolled out, it's the poor who
will ultimately foot the bill, all at a time when
things are already tough enough for many, many people. Now,
(20:18):
as we were preparing to shoot this video, kama Quasi
Quartan finally realized he had spectacularly failed to read the
room and announced that the tax cut would be scrapped.
A wise move, but the damage has been done. The
collapse of the pound and the fall in the guilt
markets led to some severe market stresses that almost brought
(20:39):
pension funds to the brink. Pension funds where the ultimate
beneficiaries are likely to be middle income earners with limited
nest eggs. Pension funds where the trustees were duped into
leverage by high flying ld I funds from the likes
of black Rock at OWL. A budget that ultimately lead
to cascading collateral calls that threatened to drive the UK
(21:01):
guilt market into the ground. It was only when the
Bank of England took the drastic and embarrassing step of
emergency quee that the markets breathed a sigh of relief.
But that didn't come without consequences, not only for the
bank's reputation, but also the inflation and interest rate outlook
for the coming year. As we're now seeing with the
(21:22):
mortgage product moves in the UK, higher interest rates are
already starting to break things. People are being squeezed from
both ends and now it's not even a question of
whether they can afford to heat their home, but whether
they will be able to keep it now. I know,
I know. It all sounds gloomier than a rainy day
in Stoke on Trent, but there are some silver linings
(21:45):
to this cloud. Guilty yields appear to have stabilized and
the panic appears to have subsided. Pension funds may also
use the opportunity to reassess the ld I strategies they employ. Moreover,
a higher rates environment does mean that the present value
of these liabilities is much less pronounced. I e. Better funded,
(22:06):
and while the energy subsidy may lead to additional inflation,
in the long term, it should help some of those
who are struggling at least make it through the winter.
Every little helps these days. Right, there is a crypto
company that's backed by Wall Street titans like Black Rock
(22:27):
and Goldman Sachs. It's a crypto company that has received
more funding than almost every crypto project in existence. Not
only that, but this company has been subsidizing the US
government spending and has close connections to the Federal Reserve.
It's stock is even scheduled to list on exchanges later
(22:49):
this year. Today, I'm going to tell you all about
a company that's slowly taking over the crypto industry and
explain why you need to pay close attention if you
care about financial freedom. If you've been paying attention in crypto,
you'll know that the crypto company I'm talking about today
is the one and only Circle, the issuer of the
(23:10):
U S d C stable coin. What many of you
may not know, however, is that Circle did not start
out as a stable coin company, and its roots in
the crypto industry go very deep. Circle Internet Financial, Inc.
Or Circle, was founded way back in by Jeremy Alair
and Sean Neville. Jeremy and Sean have been working together
(23:33):
for decades to build and then sell or I p
O cutting edge technology companies, notably the A Layer Corporation
and bright Cove. One of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube
is a presentation he did shortly before leaving bright Cove
to create Circle. In this video, Jeremy explains how the
final step of building a successful technology company is to
(23:55):
exit i e. Sell to a bigger company or list
on a stock exchange. More about that later on that note.
Another of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube can be found
on the World Economic Forum's official YouTube channel. It appears
that Jeremy has been a part of the WEST for
many years, and if you watched our video about the
(24:17):
West's Davos conference, you'll know that he was there this year.
Jeremy has served as the chairman and CEO of Circle
ever since it was founded in Sean served as the
president of Circle until late nine, when he stepped down
to join Circle's board of directors. Jeremy explained in one
(24:39):
interview that Sean is still involved with the company and
working on secret stuff. When Circle first began, its focus
was Bitcoin payments. Like other payments companies such as MasterCard
and Visa, Circle wanted Bitcoin to become the base layer
for the new financial system. Now, the financials system these
(25:00):
entities envisioned was not open and decentralized, but closed and centralized.
To that end, these entities effectively tried to force Bitcoin
to fit their vision. They pushed for all the old
coin innovations, such as token ization and smart contracts to
be brought to Bitcoin. They also pushed for Bitcoin's block
(25:22):
size to be increased so that it could scale I e.
B faster. This is where things get interesting. According to
various coin Telegraph articles, from Circle was the first gold
member of the Bitcoin Foundation. For those unfamiliar, the Bitcoin
Foundation was founded in twelve by early bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen,
(25:45):
who pushed for Bitcoin's block size to be increased until
he left the foundation in Those familiar with Bitcoin's history
will know that the efforts of these entities to increase
bitcoins block size hit their apex in twenty seventeen with
the so called New York Agreement the TLDR. There is
that sixty corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin
(26:09):
community to increase bitcoins block size. As a fun fact,
the New York agreement was reportedly overseen by Digital Currency
Group or DCG. Now DCG owns gray Scale and coin Desk,
and hold stakes in top crypto projects including coin base
and you guessed it, Circle, naturally, coin based CEO Brian
(26:32):
Armstrong also wanted to increase bitcoins block size. Now, as
almost all of you will know, Sen saw crypto's previous
bull run. By that time, Circle had raised around one
hundred and twenty seven million dollars from Goldman, Sacks and others.
Circle had used this capital to create a suite of
(26:53):
crypto services, including an O t C trading desk. Circle
also purchased the pollen x exchange. Around this time, Jeremy
became a part of the International Monetary Fund or i
mf's High Level Advisory Group on Fintech. For context, the
purpose of the i m F is to ensure that
the current US centric financial system continues without interference from
(27:17):
cryptocurrencies and other such technologies. Now, I wouldn't be mentioning
this were it not for the fact that Circle and
other Wall Street funded crypto companies held a closed door
meeting with the i m F that same year. Obviously,
this meeting was met with lots of scrutiny from the
crypto community, and it looks like there have been many
(27:40):
meetings since now. Jeremy explained in multiple interviews that by
this point Circle could see that Bitcoin wasn't the future
of payments. That said, Jeremy still believes that BTC is
digital gold and could someday serve as the world's next
reserve currency. In interview, Jeremy said he holds mostly BTC
(28:03):
and cash. This sounds crazy until you realize that the
US dollar is on the decline and that central banks
are increasingly holding alternative currencies as part of their balance sheets.
Jeremy believes BTC will be a part of that alternative
currency basket in the next ten to twenty years, which
is consistent with our predictions. More about that using the
(28:24):
link in the description. Anyways, thinking that Bitcoin could not
be the future of payments, Circle and others turned their
eyes to the next best cryptocurrency on the market. This was,
of course, Ethereum, which grew significantly during the previous bullmarket
cycle and established eth as the second largest crypto by
market cap. Jeremy mentioned in many interviews that Circle started
(28:49):
considering Ethereum as early as twenty sixteen and settled on
the decision to build a U S dollar stable coin
on ethereum. In Circle based a hundred and ten million
dollars from Chinese crypto mining company bitmain and others to
build its stable coin. That same year, coin Base and
(29:09):
Circle founded the Center Consortium to set standards for stable
coins issued on public block chains and to govern the
issuance and redemption of the USDC stable coin. Now it's
important to note that any entity that's part of the
Center Consortium can mint and redeem stable coins. The USDC
(29:31):
stable coin officially launched in September twenty eighteen and got
off to a rough start. This was because September twenty
eighteen was the middle of the crypto bear market and
there wasn't much demand for stable coins. As a result,
usdcs market cap remained mostly flat during this period. In
(29:52):
Circle subsequently sold its suite of products and services to
focus on its stable coin. Bias included Kraken, which purchased
circles OTC trading Desk, and Tron founder Justin Son, who
reportedly purchased Polognacs from Circle, that's a whole other rabbit hole.
And speaking of rabbit holes, Circle's head of trading also
(30:14):
left the company in mid twenty nineteen to establish CMS Holdings.
CMS Holdings is a well known crypto investing company and
recently confirmed to our research team via email that there
are also Defy whales now. This is significant because DEFY
seems to have been the primary demand driver of usdc's
(30:36):
market cap growth. This growth appears to have begun around
the time the coin base began investing USDC in Defy
protocols in late namely Compound Finance and d y d X.
Really gets the noggin jogging now. In early twenty Jeremy
attended the weft's annual conference in Davos, where he preached
(30:57):
about the power of programmable money. He also talked about
the importance of a partnership between the public and private
sector to quote support the development of global stable coins
backed by its central bank money. Circle even published a
stable coin white paper for the West, which I honestly
didn't have the time to read because there are just
(31:18):
so many rabbit holes there. What I did have time
to do, however, is listened to an interview with Jeremy,
where he explained the assets backing USDC will inevitably be
held at the FED. If you watched our video about
the assets backing stable coins, you'll know that most stable
coins are backed by US government debt. This means that
(31:39):
when you buy a stable coin, you are essentially subsidizing
the US government spending, a scary thing considering that many
use stable coins for safety. This also makes it possible
for Circle to make billions of dollars impassive income. But
let's not go there just yet. All you need to
know for now is that Jeremy's repeated prediction that usdc's
(32:03):
reserves will be held at the FED relates to something
called a synthetic central bank digital currency, or synthetic CBDC.
As the name suggests, Synthetic CBDCs involve a partnership between
a private company, in this case, Circle, and the central
bank of a country, in this case, the Federal Reserve
(32:24):
to issue a day facto CBDC, in this case, a
de facto digital dollar. As you might have guessed, the
I m F and the WEF are particularly interested in
this synthetic CBDC set up. It seems the only disagreement
is about which blockchain will power a synthetic CBDC. Will
(32:45):
it be a private and permission blockchain created by a
big bank or a cryptocurrency. More on that in a bit.
You know this reminds me. Another thing that Jeremy has
mentioned in many interviews is the prospect of a global
stable coin that will be modeled on the I m
F S Special Drawing Rights or SDR. The SDR consists
(33:08):
of multiple national currencies, and Jeremy believes it will eventually
include BTC. Spooky, Now where were we are? Yes? As
you can see, us dcs market cap went parabolic during
the DeFi summer of twenty and continued to grow as
u SEC expanded to new exchanges and smart contract cryptocurrencies.
(33:31):
Any algo holders in the audience will know that Algorand
was the second blockchain that USDC expanded to. If you
watched my recent old coin update on coin Bureau clips,
you'll know that Algorand seems to have a very close
relationship with both Circle and the Federal Reserve. Circle is
based in Boston, Massachusetts, a stone throw from m I
(33:54):
T where Algorand founder Sylvio McCauley is based. CBDC reports
by the FED that the Central Bank partnered with m
I T to develop its digital dollar. Meanwhile, a one
report by accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers noted that the
FED would begin testing quantum resistance on its would be
blockchain this year. As it so happens, Algorand recently achieved
(34:18):
quantum resistance through the introduction of state proofs. The total
supply of USDC on Algorand is also a whopping eighteen trillion,
which happens to be eerily close to the M two
money supply of the US dollar probably nothing any who.
Shortly after Circle announced its multi chain push, former CLS
(34:40):
Bank CEO David Pooth became the CEO of the Center Consortium.
Now don't worry if you don't know these names. Jeremy
mentioned in one interview that CLS Bank is the quote
biggest bank that nobody knows. CLS Bank apparently settles more
than two trillion dollars of transactions per day between the
(35:01):
seventy largest banks on the planet. As per Circle's blog post,
David's job is to ensure quote the most significant transformation
of the international monetary system since the formation of the
Breton Woods system. Oddly enough, David recently stepped away from
the Center Consortium to become a senior adviser to Circle.
(35:23):
This might have something to do with the exponential growth
of Circle, which really began in twenty one. That's because
Circle raised a staggering four hundred and forty million dollars
from various crypto vcs, including DCG and f t X,
all the while Circle was offering high yield USDC accounts
(35:45):
to institutional investors that were returning between eight and eleven
percent per year, according to an interview with Jeremy from
February one. This eventually led to allegations by skeptical journalists
that Circle was in aging in extremely high risk defy
activities behind the scenes to earn this high yield. Note
(36:06):
that this is the same kind of stuff that crypto
platforms like Celsius and Voyager Digital were doing before they
went bankrupt. Following the collapse of the crypto market and
the appointment of SEC chairman Gary Gensler, stable coins began
to experience lots of scrutiny, including USDC. It didn't take
(36:27):
long for stable coin issuers to publish details about the
assets backing all their billions of tokens in circulation. If
you watched our aforementioned video about the assets backing stable coins,
you'll know that Pasos took the top spot for collateral quality.
Circle has since changed the composition of the assets back
in USDC to match those of Packsos's b U s D.
(36:50):
Let's just say Tether's reserves are still well, not quite
at the same level. In case you're wondering around, of
the USDC circulation is currently backed by short term US
government debt and is backed by cash. Now, assuming short
term US government debt means two year treasuries, this means
(37:12):
that Circle is earning a yield of around four on
almost forty billion dollars of reserves. If you crunch those numbers,
that works out too well over one million dollars in
pure passive income every single month. As I mentioned in
one of our recent weekly crypto reviews, there is a
(37:32):
lot that you can do with that kind of money,
particularly during a bear market, and especially in the crypto industry.
This incredible potential for passive profit is probably why Circle
managed to secure a special purpose acquisition company or spack
deal for its stock to list on US exchanges. Circle
stock is expected to list by the end of this year,
(37:55):
but given the current state of the market, this seems
unlikely in my view at a rate now. Towards the
end of one, Circles started to call for reasonable crypto
regulations and seems to have lobbied to that end. The
company also continued to expand USDC to other blockchains and
started looking into stable coins for other theat currencies, notably
(38:19):
the Japanese yen and the New Zealand dollar. Some of
you will recall that late one is when Terror's algorithmic
ust stable coin began to gain serious ground, especially in
defied protocols, where USDC had reigned supreme for almost two years. Interestingly,
Jeremy had predicted in a interview that decentralized stable coins
(38:42):
would surface. This is simply because decentralized stable coins are
well decentralized. This means that their creation and destruction is
done via voluntary, free market arbitrage, and that nobody can
freeze or confiscate these tokens. Note that all centralized stable
coin issuers have frozen tokens in the past. This occasional
(39:05):
freezing of tokens is just the tip of the iceberg, too,
because in a interview Jeremy confirmed that Circle has the
power to freeze all its sable coins in circulation. This
is a terrifying prospect when you remember that Circle has
uncomfortably close ties to Wall Street, the I, M F,
and the West. It's also terrifying to consider that supposedly
(39:28):
decentralized table coins like maker Dow's Die are backed mostly
by U s DC. Maker Dow's founder actually called for
Die to drop its PEG to get off of USDC
after Circle froze a bunch of tokens related to Tornado Cash.
More about what happened there in the description. Anyhow, this
(39:49):
brings us to two now. In my opinion, the most
important announcement from Circle this year was the release of
the Verity platform in February. This is because it's to
roll out digital identities in cryptocurrency, and it looks like
Polygon was the first to sign on watch out. Two
months later, Circle announced that it had received another four
(40:11):
hundred million dollars of funding in around, led by black Rock,
the world's largest asset manager. Black Rock and Circle also
entered a quote strategic partnership which would see black Rock
managed circles cash reserves. Black Rocks buy in bought circles
total funding to well over one billion dollars, and crunch
(40:31):
base suggests that this figure is much higher, though the
details of all these investments were apparently not disclosed. Then again,
it looks like coin Desk made up for the reporting shortfall,
not surprising given the circumstances. In any case, the market
cap of Circles USDC hit an all time high of
over fifty five billion dollars in the aftermath of the
(40:54):
collapse of Terror's UST and the concerns around Tether's USDT
that arose during the chaos. I'll quickly note that Jeremy
had admitted in previous interviews that both stable coins were
competitors to USDC. As expected, terrorist collapse and the temporary
depegging of USDT led to renewed calls for stable coin
(41:14):
regulation around the world. If you watch our recent video
about the leak of Europe's MICA bill, you'll know that
it appears Circle has been very involved in influencing these regulations.
Say did I mention that x r P is a
top competitor to the global system that Circle and the
Center Consortium are trying to create? Noah, probably nothing. Now
(41:41):
If Circle is leveraging regulations. It would be nothing new.
Incumbents have long used regulation to prevent competition. Goldman Saxes
CEO actually admitted this shortly after the bank invested in
Circle Back. It's not just regulations where stable coin issuers
seemed to be competing either. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently announced
(42:04):
it would be converting all stable coin trading pairs except
those involving us d T into b U s D
which I'll remind you is issued by Paxos. Jeremy said
that this somehow benefits U s d C, but I
highly doubt that, and the proof is in the pudding.
U s dcs market cap has been slipping over the
last few weeks, and it took a plunge when Binance
(42:27):
effectively gave USDC the boot at the end of September.
This means that Circle has to sell assets behind the
scenes to ensure that the supply of USDC is in
line with the lower level of demand for USDC following
its day Facto d listing. To be clear, it's well
within Binances right to make this move. It just goes
(42:47):
to show that crypto is hyper competitive and every crypto
project and company has its way of cementing itself in
the industry. In Circle's case, this involves working with questionable
global organizations and expanding on chain. This includes issuing stable
coins denominated in other currencies besides the USD to appease
(43:09):
foreign governments and regulators. Make no mistake. At this rate,
it's more than likely that every national currency will have
its own stable coin issued by the Center Consortium, a
perfect synthetic CBDC, and as with USDC, all these synthetic
CBDCs will be backed by the government debt of their
(43:29):
respective regions. This means you'll have no choice but to
subsidize your government spending and lower interest rates for institutions
when the powers that be inevitably phase out cash. But wait,
there's more. Just the other day, Circle announced that it
will be expanding to five additional smart contract cryptocurrencies and
(43:51):
introducing a cross chain interoperability protocol for its stable coins.
It even announced that it had partnered with block to
bring u SDC to Bitcoin. Heck, Jack Dawsey is a
Bitcoin MAXI. If that didn't make it clear enough, Circle
is also quickly taking over every single smart contract cryptocurrency
(44:12):
I reckon it won't belong. Before we see Circle start
to buy stakes in the proof of stake blockchains, It's
stable coins are circulating on and it's possible this is
happening already. With its stable coin reserves being held by
the FED, Circle could potentially have access to unlimited liquidity
a k a. The money printer. With the money printer
(44:34):
in its grip, Circle will in fact have the power
to take total control of every proof of stake smart
contract cryptocurrency in existence. Case and point. Ethereum creator Vitality
Terrant recently admitted that Circle will have the power to
decide the future of forks on Ethereum due to its
stable coin liquidity. At the rate that Circle is growing,
(44:56):
this will soon be the case for every other proof
of state smart contract crypto on the market. For what
it's worth, it looks like Bitcoin's BTC and physical cash
will offer protection from the upcoming dystopia that Circle and
its affiliates are not so subtly rushing to roll out.
I mean, why else would Jeremy hold most of his
(45:17):
wealth in cash and BTC? Maybe, just maybe he knows
what's coming now. To Jeremy's credit, he wants stable coins
to be as cash like as possible, meaning transaction privacy
and no k y C. The problem is that the
regulators will probably never allow this, and the institution's Circle
(45:37):
has aligned itself with explicitly want to take control of
every transaction you and I make forever. This brings me
back to something I mentioned earlier, and that's Circle's co
founders have a history of building up and then exiting
cutting edge tech companies. This makes me wonder whether Jeremy
and Sean will do the same with Circle once it's stock.
(46:00):
As I p oed via this back. This is because
Circle could an ironically become the most valuable company on
the planet if it succeeds in its mission of literally
recalibrating the whole global financial system around stable coins. The
only issue with this analysis is that fiat currencies are
failing and stable coins probably won't help much. This is
(46:24):
something Jeremy seems to be hyper aware of, and I
reckon it's why he's so bullish on BTC, despite Circles
having ditched Bitcoin half a decade ago. As such, it's
probably wise to watch whether he leaves Circle after its
I p O. If he does, then it probably means
he knows that Circle will inevitably fail. By now, you're
(46:46):
probably wondering which blockchain Jeremy believes will support all of
circles stable coins. Well, the short answer is all of them.
The Circle team seems to be genuinely blockchain agnostic, and
Jeremy believes that each smart contract cryptocurrency will have a
piece of the financial puzzle. Even so, it's clear that
(47:08):
Ethereum is currently the favorite, and that's simply because it's
security is unparalleled among smart contract cryptocurrencies. Oddly enough, Solana
appears to be the official chain for USDC according to
the Center Consortium, but this has probably changed after all
the outages in some then Circle will probably become the
(47:30):
most powerful company in cryptocurrency, maybe even the entire world,
but will arguably fail due to the fact that it's
fundamentally leveraging failing FIAT currencies. The silver lining is that
Circle's domination will make the average person comfortable with cryptocurrency.
And if I had my tinfoil hat on, I'd tell
you that was the end game. All along, partner with
(47:54):
all the international organizations and the financial system, convince them
to adopt stable coins, sneak BTC in through the back
door with an I m F SDR stable coin and
turn BTC into the world's next reserve currency. That is
an outcome I would love to see because the alternative
is eternal slavery. You can find out exactly what the
(48:18):
people in power are planning by watching our recent video
about a new kind of social credit score. The link
to that flick will be down in the description. Thank
you so much for listening to the coin Bureau podcast.
If you'd like to learn more about cryptocurrency, you can
visit our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com forward slash
coin Bureau. You can also go to coin bureau dot
(48:40):
com for loads more information about all things crypto. You
can follow me on Twitter at at coin bureau or
one word, and I'm also active on TikTok and Instagram too,
Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode from the
midweek edition of the coin Bureau podcast. Every week, I
pick out two of my favorite videos from coin Bureau's
YouTube channel to present to you in podcast form. The
audio you're about to hear is from those videos I've
chosen this week. Many of you have been in touch
to ask whether it's possible to listen to our videos
in podcast format, and so your wish is my command.
(00:23):
This week, I've selected our videos about the sudden crisis
that recently gripped the British bond market and the company
that could soon come to dominate the entire crypto industry.
It's not been easy being a bridge recently, when our
new chancellor announced a raft of tax cuts just a
couple of weeks ago, financial markets did not take the
news well. The pound dipped to its lowest ever level
(00:47):
against the US dollar, while the market for Guilt's British
government bonds also went haywire. The situation got so bad
that the Bank of England had to step in to
calm the situation with you guessed it, a bit of
good old quantitative easing. The situation has since stabilized somewhat,
but the lesson is clear. Markets don't like to see
(01:07):
a government borrowing even more money at a time when
fiscal prudence should be the order of the day. In
the first part of today's episode, i'd break down exactly
what happened and what could come next. Then in part two,
you'll hear all about a company that's quickly becoming one
of the most powerful forces in the crypto industry. It's
backed by the likes of Goldman, Sachs and Black Rock
(01:29):
and is due to become only the second crypto company
to go public later this year. The company in question
is Circle, issuer of the U S d C stable coin,
and if you haven't heard much about it yet, well
you will. In the second part of today's episode, I
lift the lid on this can of worms and tell
you everything you need to know about what could feasibly
(01:50):
become one of the biggest companies in the world. I
hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and I'll
be back talking crypto with Mike very soon, so be
sure to stay tuned. And if you want even more
content from coin Bureau, be sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel and visit us on social media too. Last
(02:28):
week saw one of the most dramatic meltdowns in the
financial markets for years, and meltdown which could have led
to a complete collapse in the UK sovereign debt market.
It was so severe that it forced the Bank of
England to try and calm the situation by turning the
money printer back on. However, every action has an equal
(02:50):
and opposite reaction, unintended consequences will rear their ugly heads.
In this video, I'm going to explain exactly what happened
and what could mean for the markets going forward. So
don't go anywhere now. I assume that not all of
you have been keeping up to date with UK politics recently,
(03:10):
and to be honest, I don't blame you. So three
months ago, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to resign,
having lost the faith of the Conservative Party. Why this
happened is beyond the scope of this video, suffice to
say that it had been a long time coming. The
Conservatives then held a lengthy internal election process to determine
(03:31):
who would be the new leader of the party and
hence Prime Minister. Conservative MPs narrowed the field down to
two candidates, who then had to secure votes from the
wider party membership. After a long, bitter and frankly often
tedious battle with former Chancellor Rishie Sunac, Liz Trust won
the election with a total of eighty one thousand votes.
(03:52):
That's right, party members decided the future leader of an
entire country. That folks is democracy, apparently any who. Liz
Julie appointed her cabinet and named a loyalist and close friend,
Quasi Quatanan, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is
effectively the Minister of Finance is akin to the Treasury
(04:13):
Secretary in the US. We Brits are just better at titles. Now,
after a hiatus caused by the death of Queen Elizabeth
and a subsequent period of morning business was resumed, Quasi
unveiled his new mini budget in the House of Commons
and it did not go down well. Now. One of
the most contentious parts of this mini budget was a
(04:35):
tax cut which was overwhelmingly favorable to the rich. Quasi
effectively scrapped the top fort tax rate. Now, this of
course meant that the government would be short of change
forty five billion pounds to be exact. More on that later. Now,
if that didn't sufficiently dent the market's confidence. Then the
energy subsidy certainly did sixty billion pounds worth over the
(05:00):
next six months. However, it's not only the cost that
we would witness over the next six months that's the issue.
It's the cost of this fiscal package over the next
five years. By some estimates, this could be as much
as one hundred and sixty one billion pounds. So the
inevitable question naturally arose, how on earth is all this
(05:22):
going to be paid for? Well, what does anyone do
when they want to spend without earning income. That's right,
they borrow. The thing is that markets are not all
that happy to invest in the sovereign debt of a
country that's becoming less credit worthy. They're also not too
happy to hold the currency of a country that is
likely going to feed further inflation with reckless fiscal spending.
(05:46):
The result was an unprecedented shock to the markets. The
pound hit a near all time low of one dollar
and four cents in the early hours of Monday morning.
It had many people, including myself, wondering whether parity was
on the cards. But the collapse in the pound was
not even the worst of our concerns. That's because the
(06:08):
moves in the guilt market were even more alarming. Now,
for those unfamiliar with archaic British fiscal terminology, guilts is
the term used to refer to British government bonds. It's
a shortening of the term guilt edged securities fact fans. Now,
in the wake of the mini budgets announcement, foreign investors
(06:28):
began dumping their guilts as they digested the news. The
scale of the selling was so bad that it was
the worst day in the UK guilt market since According
to the head of UK rate strategy at HSBC Quote,
the moves in long end yields were nothing short of incredible.
The guilt market was in free fall. As a result
(06:50):
of this sell off, there was an unprecedented rise in
the yield on guilts. Now over here you can see
the charts on the yield of the longest dated guilt
thirty years is it's quite hard to appreciate how crazy
moves like this are in a thirty year instrument. That
this was one for the record books. They went from
about three point six on the twenty second September to
(07:13):
over five the following Wednesday, the highest level in twenty years,
and it's not only the fact that the yield was
reaching such crazy levels, but it's also the speed at
which they were moving. Here you can see the volatility
around these yields. It's pretty crazy. So why is this
a problem. Well, if you were an investor who got
(07:34):
exposure to guilt's synthetically i e. Through derivatives, you would
need to post collateral to fund these traits. But it
was even worse for those investors and institutions that had
entered derivative agreements that were exposed to moves in guilt yields.
The largest investors of this type were those who employed
an l d I or liability driven investment strategy. For
(07:58):
those unfamiliar, this is an investor style that attempts to
hedge out liability exposure. And those with the most exposure
to longer dated guilt yields were pension funds. That's because
their liabilities present value of pension payments are discounted using
applicable interest rates. Now I've linked to some resources that
(08:19):
explain l d I in a bit more detailed down below.
But whereas older ld I strategies just involved holding longer
dated government debt, new strategies involved complicated interest rate derivative
structures in what are called l d I funds. These
included the likes of interest rate swaps, guilt total return swaps, swaptions,
(08:41):
and other complex instruments. Not only that, but these were
leveraged up to four times. This meant that those pension funds,
or indeed anyone who invested in l d I funds,
were exposed to outsize moves in interest rates, they would
need to post collateral as their derivative hedges unwound quit
than they could raise the cash. Now, I know what
(09:03):
you're thinking, Who on Earth structured and developed these ld
I funds. Well, that would be the likes of black Rock,
Insight Legal in General and their ILK. It's pretty crazy
to think that your mum's pension is being hedged by
the likes of these chaps. But hey, this is the
world of fiat finance, folks. It's like an iceberg with
(09:24):
a whole lot of risk lurking beneath the surface. Now,
the point is that pension funds were in a deeply
unfortunate situation as they were forced to post collateral on
derivative trades that no one had anticipated. This meant that
these pension funds had to conduct a fire sale of
their assets in order to free up liquidity to post
(09:44):
this collateral. Apparently, some funds even made calls for cash
to employers backing their plans. According to the Financial Times,
outsourcing groups CIRCO provided sixty million pounds after a request
from pension trustees, something incredibly unusual for such a well
funded scheme. But the rush to sell assets had an
(10:06):
even more perverse effect, a self inducing chain reaction that
could actually have brought the financial markets to a standstill. Basically,
in order to realize that liquidity, these pension funds needed
to sell other assets to free up cash. Well, it
turns out that pension funds hold a lot of guilts
(10:27):
as well. Not only that, but these are among the
most liquid assets they hold and thus some of the
easiest to realize for cash. Hence, pension funds started dumping
their guilts too. This of course meant that there were
further falls in the prices of these guilts and rises
in the interest rates on them. Higher rates, more collateral
(10:49):
calls on leveraged LDI trades, more guilt selling. It's a
spiral of guilt, fire sales and collateral calls. Things were
getting seriously out of hand. There was a legitimate concern
that this could devolve into a full blown financial crisis,
and unlike in two thousand and eight when it involved banks,
(11:09):
this would have involved the one point five trillion pound
pension sector. According to a senior London banker quoted in
the same FT article, quote at some point this morning
I was worried this was the beginning of the end.
He also added that at that time there were no
buyers of long dated UK guilts. According to Karen Rosenberg,
(11:32):
Cardano Investment chief executive quote, if there was no intervention today,
guilt yields could have gone up to seven to eight
percent from four point five percent this morning, and in
that situation around ninety percent of UK pension funds would
have run out of collateral. For reference, Cardano Investments manages
LDI strategies for about thirty UK pension schemes worth roughly
(11:56):
fifty billion pounds in assets, and no nothing to do
with the Layer one blockchain project. Now, this statement was
made as part of a plea to the Bank of England,
the Central Bank of the UK, to intervene in the market. However,
could the bank really step in and do something. I mean,
it was in the middle of a rate tightening cycle
(12:17):
and had stopped its guilt buying program only a few
weeks ago. Well, the fear in the markets was just
too great and caused the Bank of England to warn
of a quote material risk to UK financial stability. It
duly unleashed a sixty five billion pound bond buying program
on Wednesday. In other words, quantitative easing, or in the
(12:40):
parlance of our times money printer go. It was an
unprecedented action for a central bank which had only a
week previously raised interest rates by fifty basis points, A
bank that stated it was committed to fighting inflation, A
bank which now finds itself turning on the printing presses again,
(13:01):
or to clean up the mess that kama Quasi, Kwarteng
and ld I Funds had got us into. Speaking of which,
did you guys know that black Rock threatened to halt
trading for numerous pension fund clients. Yep, It's sent a
memo to clients that it would quote freeze funds more
at risk of assets being exhausted. Trustees at pension funds
(13:22):
mentioned that the actions left pension schemes unable to take
steps to protect their members. Literally, these funds could not
buy or sell assets at that time. Anyway, the Bank
of England's emergency QUEUI was able to bring calm back
to the markets in a pretty dramatic fashion. Guilt prices
(13:43):
rocketed and yields on the instruments fell dramatically. For example,
the third year guilt fell as much as one hundred
basis points on the day. It was the biggest rally
in a single day since in the days that followed
the yields kept on falling and sterling marked a pretty
decent rally. It seemed as if the markets were breathing
(14:05):
a sigh of relief. But at what cost. Well, there's
the immediate question of what impact the mini budget could
have on the UK's economy. It was a pretty ill
thought out plan and has resulted in near universal condemnation.
I mean, even the folks at the i m F
issued a statement rebuking the British government. It said, quote,
(14:27):
given elevated inflation pressures in many countries, including the UK,
we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at
this juncture. Moreover, quote, it is important that fiscal policy
does not work at cross purposes to monetary policy. I
mean the but perhaps most damning of all is that
(14:49):
the i m F said that these measures are likely
to increase inequality, which is indeed true. That's because not
only are the richest people in the country getting tax break,
but the poor are getting a tax hike, not directly,
of course, but through increased inflation. It's already at record highs,
(15:09):
and now you also have to add the impact of
the unfunded fiscal spending. Then you have the pound, which,
given its devaluation, makes imports that much more expensive, pushing
inflation still higher. Now I've spoken to many, many friends
and family members in the UK and they are already
feeling the impact of the falling pound. Moreover, the weakening
(15:32):
pound means higher energy costs, which could even dampen much
of the short term relief derived from those energy subsidies. Then,
of course there is the impact that the actions by
the Bank of England are likely to have. It was
supposed to be fighting inflation and selling guilts in the market. However,
its actions last week ran counter to that policy. Not
(15:55):
only do we now have more money in the system inflationary,
but it also dealt amount sift blow to the Bank
of England's credibility. For central banks, credibility is essential people
build their inflation expectations on the word of central banks.
In August, inflation was already at nine point nine percent,
(16:15):
and there are many analysts who think it could go
into the high double digits next year. For example, City
Bank thinks that if the energy crisis deepens, we could
see inflation at eighteen percent early next year. Just think
about that. What this means is that the Bank of
England is going to have to be even more aggressive
when it comes to hiking interest rates in the coming months,
(16:38):
and that itself has some really adverse implications for the
UK mortgage market. You see, not only did the mini
budget lead to panic in the UK pension funds, but
it also led to mayhem in the mortgage market. Numerous
mortgage providers in the UK started with drawing their products
in the days after the budget. That's because they were
(17:00):
unable to price them amid all the market uncertainty. According
to The Guardian, about of mortgage deals have been withdrawn
during those days when guilt yields were rallying. These fixed
rate mortgages were becoming instantly unaffordable for many of the
smaller banks operating on tighter profit margins. There was also
(17:20):
a flood of applications for these fixed rate mortgages in
the immediate aftermath of the budget. People were scrambling to
secure deals before they were priced up on the market.
According to a mortgage executive quote, I was literally watching
the application numbers by the minute. We saw a threefold
increase in existing customers contacting us. According to Andy Golding,
(17:43):
the chief executive of One Savings quote, there were queues
around Southampton, Row and up High Hope and people wanting
to buy a ten point five percent fixed rate mortgage.
Panic appeared to be gripping the market as people rushed
to try and grab what might be their last aunts
at an affordable mortgage. And bear in mind that not
(18:03):
so long ago ten point five percent would have been
deemed laughably expensive. How things change. However, what really concerns
me is what happens when these mortgage rates reset. You see,
unlike in the US, for instance, where fixed rate mortgages
can be signed for a term of ten to twenty years,
(18:24):
fixed rates in the UK are usually much shorter in duration.
We're generally talking two to five years max. Longer terms
of ten years are available, but less common. What that
means is that once these fixed rate mortgages expire, they
will have to be refinanced at a much higher rate.
And as we know, interest rates are shooting up thanks
(18:47):
to the Bank of England's rate policy. After this latest
mini budget announcement, Bank of America analysts revised their estimates
for base interest rates in the UK to four percent
by August of next year. May I remind you that
the rate is currently at two point to five, which
means that anyone who secured a fixed rate mortgage over
(19:08):
the past two years is going to have to refinance
with much higher mortgage payments. Next year alone, the fixed
rate mortgages of one point eight million households are due
to end now. According to data from Bloomberg Economics, the
cost of a two year mortgage will rise by seventy
by March of next year compared with January of this year.
(19:31):
How many UK homeowners will be able to afford to
refinance at this higher rate with everything else going on?
Could it exacerbate the cost of living crisis and further
squeeze ordinary Brits, all while the rich squirrel away those
supposed tax breaks savings they've been handed. Well, at least
we have our super secure pensions to fall back on. Right. Okay,
(19:54):
time for a few of my closing thoughts now, As
a proud brit watching the fallout from this catast trophic
budget was painful. That's because not only was the aim
to reduce taxes for the rich, but given how haphazardly
it was planned and rolled out, it's the poor who
will ultimately foot the bill, all at a time when
things are already tough enough for many, many people. Now,
(20:18):
as we were preparing to shoot this video, kama Quasi
Quartan finally realized he had spectacularly failed to read the
room and announced that the tax cut would be scrapped.
A wise move, but the damage has been done. The
collapse of the pound and the fall in the guilt
markets led to some severe market stresses that almost brought
(20:39):
pension funds to the brink. Pension funds where the ultimate
beneficiaries are likely to be middle income earners with limited
nest eggs. Pension funds where the trustees were duped into
leverage by high flying ld I funds from the likes
of black Rock at OWL. A budget that ultimately lead
to cascading collateral calls that threatened to drive the UK
(21:01):
guilt market into the ground. It was only when the
Bank of England took the drastic and embarrassing step of
emergency quee that the markets breathed a sigh of relief.
But that didn't come without consequences, not only for the
bank's reputation, but also the inflation and interest rate outlook
for the coming year. As we're now seeing with the
(21:22):
mortgage product moves in the UK, higher interest rates are
already starting to break things. People are being squeezed from
both ends and now it's not even a question of
whether they can afford to heat their home, but whether
they will be able to keep it now. I know,
I know. It all sounds gloomier than a rainy day
in Stoke on Trent, but there are some silver linings
(21:45):
to this cloud. Guilty yields appear to have stabilized and
the panic appears to have subsided. Pension funds may also
use the opportunity to reassess the ld I strategies they employ. Moreover,
a higher rates environment does mean that the present value
of these liabilities is much less pronounced. I e. Better funded,
(22:06):
and while the energy subsidy may lead to additional inflation,
in the long term, it should help some of those
who are struggling at least make it through the winter.
Every little helps these days. Right, there is a crypto
company that's backed by Wall Street titans like Black Rock
(22:27):
and Goldman Sachs. It's a crypto company that has received
more funding than almost every crypto project in existence. Not
only that, but this company has been subsidizing the US
government spending and has close connections to the Federal Reserve.
It's stock is even scheduled to list on exchanges later
(22:49):
this year. Today, I'm going to tell you all about
a company that's slowly taking over the crypto industry and
explain why you need to pay close attention if you
care about financial freedom. If you've been paying attention in crypto,
you'll know that the crypto company I'm talking about today
is the one and only Circle, the issuer of the
(23:10):
U S d C stable coin. What many of you
may not know, however, is that Circle did not start
out as a stable coin company, and its roots in
the crypto industry go very deep. Circle Internet Financial, Inc.
Or Circle, was founded way back in by Jeremy Alair
and Sean Neville. Jeremy and Sean have been working together
(23:33):
for decades to build and then sell or I p
O cutting edge technology companies, notably the A Layer Corporation
and bright Cove. One of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube
is a presentation he did shortly before leaving bright Cove
to create Circle. In this video, Jeremy explains how the
final step of building a successful technology company is to
(23:55):
exit i e. Sell to a bigger company or list
on a stock exchange. More about that later on that note.
Another of Jeremy's oldest videos on YouTube can be found
on the World Economic Forum's official YouTube channel. It appears
that Jeremy has been a part of the WEST for
many years, and if you watched our video about the
(24:17):
West's Davos conference, you'll know that he was there this year.
Jeremy has served as the chairman and CEO of Circle
ever since it was founded in Sean served as the
president of Circle until late nine, when he stepped down
to join Circle's board of directors. Jeremy explained in one
(24:39):
interview that Sean is still involved with the company and
working on secret stuff. When Circle first began, its focus
was Bitcoin payments. Like other payments companies such as MasterCard
and Visa, Circle wanted Bitcoin to become the base layer
for the new financial system. Now, the financials system these
(25:00):
entities envisioned was not open and decentralized, but closed and centralized.
To that end, these entities effectively tried to force Bitcoin
to fit their vision. They pushed for all the old
coin innovations, such as token ization and smart contracts to
be brought to Bitcoin. They also pushed for Bitcoin's block
(25:22):
size to be increased so that it could scale I e.
B faster. This is where things get interesting. According to
various coin Telegraph articles, from Circle was the first gold
member of the Bitcoin Foundation. For those unfamiliar, the Bitcoin
Foundation was founded in twelve by early bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen,
(25:45):
who pushed for Bitcoin's block size to be increased until
he left the foundation in Those familiar with Bitcoin's history
will know that the efforts of these entities to increase
bitcoins block size hit their apex in twenty seventeen with
the so called New York Agreement the TLDR. There is
that sixty corporations tried and failed to convince the Bitcoin
(26:09):
community to increase bitcoins block size. As a fun fact,
the New York agreement was reportedly overseen by Digital Currency
Group or DCG. Now DCG owns gray Scale and coin Desk,
and hold stakes in top crypto projects including coin base
and you guessed it, Circle, naturally, coin based CEO Brian
(26:32):
Armstrong also wanted to increase bitcoins block size. Now, as
almost all of you will know, Sen saw crypto's previous
bull run. By that time, Circle had raised around one
hundred and twenty seven million dollars from Goldman, Sacks and others.
Circle had used this capital to create a suite of
(26:53):
crypto services, including an O t C trading desk. Circle
also purchased the pollen x exchange. Around this time, Jeremy
became a part of the International Monetary Fund or i
mf's High Level Advisory Group on Fintech. For context, the
purpose of the i m F is to ensure that
the current US centric financial system continues without interference from
(27:17):
cryptocurrencies and other such technologies. Now, I wouldn't be mentioning
this were it not for the fact that Circle and
other Wall Street funded crypto companies held a closed door
meeting with the i m F that same year. Obviously,
this meeting was met with lots of scrutiny from the
crypto community, and it looks like there have been many
(27:40):
meetings since now. Jeremy explained in multiple interviews that by
this point Circle could see that Bitcoin wasn't the future
of payments. That said, Jeremy still believes that BTC is
digital gold and could someday serve as the world's next
reserve currency. In interview, Jeremy said he holds mostly BTC
(28:03):
and cash. This sounds crazy until you realize that the
US dollar is on the decline and that central banks
are increasingly holding alternative currencies as part of their balance sheets.
Jeremy believes BTC will be a part of that alternative
currency basket in the next ten to twenty years, which
is consistent with our predictions. More about that using the
(28:24):
link in the description. Anyways, thinking that Bitcoin could not
be the future of payments, Circle and others turned their
eyes to the next best cryptocurrency on the market. This was,
of course, Ethereum, which grew significantly during the previous bullmarket
cycle and established eth as the second largest crypto by
market cap. Jeremy mentioned in many interviews that Circle started
(28:49):
considering Ethereum as early as twenty sixteen and settled on
the decision to build a U S dollar stable coin
on ethereum. In Circle based a hundred and ten million
dollars from Chinese crypto mining company bitmain and others to
build its stable coin. That same year, coin Base and
(29:09):
Circle founded the Center Consortium to set standards for stable
coins issued on public block chains and to govern the
issuance and redemption of the USDC stable coin. Now it's
important to note that any entity that's part of the
Center Consortium can mint and redeem stable coins. The USDC
(29:31):
stable coin officially launched in September twenty eighteen and got
off to a rough start. This was because September twenty
eighteen was the middle of the crypto bear market and
there wasn't much demand for stable coins. As a result,
usdcs market cap remained mostly flat during this period. In
(29:52):
Circle subsequently sold its suite of products and services to
focus on its stable coin. Bias included Kraken, which purchased
circles OTC trading Desk, and Tron founder Justin Son, who
reportedly purchased Polognacs from Circle, that's a whole other rabbit hole.
And speaking of rabbit holes, Circle's head of trading also
(30:14):
left the company in mid twenty nineteen to establish CMS Holdings.
CMS Holdings is a well known crypto investing company and
recently confirmed to our research team via email that there
are also Defy whales now. This is significant because DEFY
seems to have been the primary demand driver of usdc's
(30:36):
market cap growth. This growth appears to have begun around
the time the coin base began investing USDC in Defy
protocols in late namely Compound Finance and d y d X.
Really gets the noggin jogging now. In early twenty Jeremy
attended the weft's annual conference in Davos, where he preached
(30:57):
about the power of programmable money. He also talked about
the importance of a partnership between the public and private
sector to quote support the development of global stable coins
backed by its central bank money. Circle even published a
stable coin white paper for the West, which I honestly
didn't have the time to read because there are just
(31:18):
so many rabbit holes there. What I did have time
to do, however, is listened to an interview with Jeremy,
where he explained the assets backing USDC will inevitably be
held at the FED. If you watched our video about
the assets backing stable coins, you'll know that most stable
coins are backed by US government debt. This means that
(31:39):
when you buy a stable coin, you are essentially subsidizing
the US government spending, a scary thing considering that many
use stable coins for safety. This also makes it possible
for Circle to make billions of dollars impassive income. But
let's not go there just yet. All you need to
know for now is that Jeremy's repeated prediction that usdc's
(32:03):
reserves will be held at the FED relates to something
called a synthetic central bank digital currency, or synthetic CBDC.
As the name suggests, Synthetic CBDCs involve a partnership between
a private company, in this case, Circle, and the central
bank of a country, in this case, the Federal Reserve
(32:24):
to issue a day facto CBDC, in this case, a
de facto digital dollar. As you might have guessed, the
I m F and the WEF are particularly interested in
this synthetic CBDC set up. It seems the only disagreement
is about which blockchain will power a synthetic CBDC. Will
(32:45):
it be a private and permission blockchain created by a
big bank or a cryptocurrency. More on that in a bit.
You know this reminds me. Another thing that Jeremy has
mentioned in many interviews is the prospect of a global
stable coin that will be modeled on the I m
F S Special Drawing Rights or SDR. The SDR consists
(33:08):
of multiple national currencies, and Jeremy believes it will eventually
include BTC. Spooky, Now where were we are? Yes? As
you can see, us dcs market cap went parabolic during
the DeFi summer of twenty and continued to grow as
u SEC expanded to new exchanges and smart contract cryptocurrencies.
(33:31):
Any algo holders in the audience will know that Algorand
was the second blockchain that USDC expanded to. If you
watched my recent old coin update on coin Bureau clips,
you'll know that Algorand seems to have a very close
relationship with both Circle and the Federal Reserve. Circle is
based in Boston, Massachusetts, a stone throw from m I
(33:54):
T where Algorand founder Sylvio McCauley is based. CBDC reports
by the FED that the Central Bank partnered with m
I T to develop its digital dollar. Meanwhile, a one
report by accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers noted that the
FED would begin testing quantum resistance on its would be
blockchain this year. As it so happens, Algorand recently achieved
(34:18):
quantum resistance through the introduction of state proofs. The total
supply of USDC on Algorand is also a whopping eighteen trillion,
which happens to be eerily close to the M two
money supply of the US dollar probably nothing any who.
Shortly after Circle announced its multi chain push, former CLS
(34:40):
Bank CEO David Pooth became the CEO of the Center Consortium.
Now don't worry if you don't know these names. Jeremy
mentioned in one interview that CLS Bank is the quote
biggest bank that nobody knows. CLS Bank apparently settles more
than two trillion dollars of transactions per day between the
(35:01):
seventy largest banks on the planet. As per Circle's blog post,
David's job is to ensure quote the most significant transformation
of the international monetary system since the formation of the
Breton Woods system. Oddly enough, David recently stepped away from
the Center Consortium to become a senior adviser to Circle.
(35:23):
This might have something to do with the exponential growth
of Circle, which really began in twenty one. That's because
Circle raised a staggering four hundred and forty million dollars
from various crypto vcs, including DCG and f t X,
all the while Circle was offering high yield USDC accounts
(35:45):
to institutional investors that were returning between eight and eleven
percent per year, according to an interview with Jeremy from
February one. This eventually led to allegations by skeptical journalists
that Circle was in aging in extremely high risk defy
activities behind the scenes to earn this high yield. Note
(36:06):
that this is the same kind of stuff that crypto
platforms like Celsius and Voyager Digital were doing before they
went bankrupt. Following the collapse of the crypto market and
the appointment of SEC chairman Gary Gensler, stable coins began
to experience lots of scrutiny, including USDC. It didn't take
(36:27):
long for stable coin issuers to publish details about the
assets backing all their billions of tokens in circulation. If
you watched our aforementioned video about the assets backing stable coins,
you'll know that Pasos took the top spot for collateral quality.
Circle has since changed the composition of the assets back
in USDC to match those of Packsos's b U s D.
(36:50):
Let's just say Tether's reserves are still well, not quite
at the same level. In case you're wondering around, of
the USDC circulation is currently backed by short term US
government debt and is backed by cash. Now, assuming short
term US government debt means two year treasuries, this means
(37:12):
that Circle is earning a yield of around four on
almost forty billion dollars of reserves. If you crunch those numbers,
that works out too well over one million dollars in
pure passive income every single month. As I mentioned in
one of our recent weekly crypto reviews, there is a
(37:32):
lot that you can do with that kind of money,
particularly during a bear market, and especially in the crypto industry.
This incredible potential for passive profit is probably why Circle
managed to secure a special purpose acquisition company or spack
deal for its stock to list on US exchanges. Circle
stock is expected to list by the end of this year,
(37:55):
but given the current state of the market, this seems
unlikely in my view at a rate now. Towards the
end of one, Circles started to call for reasonable crypto
regulations and seems to have lobbied to that end. The
company also continued to expand USDC to other blockchains and
started looking into stable coins for other theat currencies, notably
(38:19):
the Japanese yen and the New Zealand dollar. Some of
you will recall that late one is when Terror's algorithmic
ust stable coin began to gain serious ground, especially in
defied protocols, where USDC had reigned supreme for almost two years. Interestingly,
Jeremy had predicted in a interview that decentralized stable coins
(38:42):
would surface. This is simply because decentralized stable coins are
well decentralized. This means that their creation and destruction is
done via voluntary, free market arbitrage, and that nobody can
freeze or confiscate these tokens. Note that all centralized stable
coin issuers have frozen tokens in the past. This occasional
(39:05):
freezing of tokens is just the tip of the iceberg, too,
because in a interview Jeremy confirmed that Circle has the
power to freeze all its sable coins in circulation. This
is a terrifying prospect when you remember that Circle has
uncomfortably close ties to Wall Street, the I, M F,
and the West. It's also terrifying to consider that supposedly
(39:28):
decentralized table coins like maker Dow's Die are backed mostly
by U s DC. Maker Dow's founder actually called for
Die to drop its PEG to get off of USDC
after Circle froze a bunch of tokens related to Tornado Cash.
More about what happened there in the description. Anyhow, this
(39:49):
brings us to two now. In my opinion, the most
important announcement from Circle this year was the release of
the Verity platform in February. This is because it's to
roll out digital identities in cryptocurrency, and it looks like
Polygon was the first to sign on watch out. Two
months later, Circle announced that it had received another four
(40:11):
hundred million dollars of funding in around, led by black Rock,
the world's largest asset manager. Black Rock and Circle also
entered a quote strategic partnership which would see black Rock
managed circles cash reserves. Black Rocks buy in bought circles
total funding to well over one billion dollars, and crunch
(40:31):
base suggests that this figure is much higher, though the
details of all these investments were apparently not disclosed. Then again,
it looks like coin Desk made up for the reporting shortfall,
not surprising given the circumstances. In any case, the market
cap of Circles USDC hit an all time high of
over fifty five billion dollars in the aftermath of the
(40:54):
collapse of Terror's UST and the concerns around Tether's USDT
that arose during the chaos. I'll quickly note that Jeremy
had admitted in previous interviews that both stable coins were
competitors to USDC. As expected, terrorist collapse and the temporary
depegging of USDT led to renewed calls for stable coin
(41:14):
regulation around the world. If you watch our recent video
about the leak of Europe's MICA bill, you'll know that
it appears Circle has been very involved in influencing these regulations.
Say did I mention that x r P is a
top competitor to the global system that Circle and the
Center Consortium are trying to create? Noah, probably nothing. Now
(41:41):
If Circle is leveraging regulations. It would be nothing new.
Incumbents have long used regulation to prevent competition. Goldman Saxes
CEO actually admitted this shortly after the bank invested in
Circle Back. It's not just regulations where stable coin issuers
seemed to be competing either. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance recently announced
(42:04):
it would be converting all stable coin trading pairs except
those involving us d T into b U s D
which I'll remind you is issued by Paxos. Jeremy said
that this somehow benefits U s d C, but I
highly doubt that, and the proof is in the pudding.
U s dcs market cap has been slipping over the
last few weeks, and it took a plunge when Binance
(42:27):
effectively gave USDC the boot at the end of September.
This means that Circle has to sell assets behind the
scenes to ensure that the supply of USDC is in
line with the lower level of demand for USDC following
its day Facto d listing. To be clear, it's well
within Binances right to make this move. It just goes
(42:47):
to show that crypto is hyper competitive and every crypto
project and company has its way of cementing itself in
the industry. In Circle's case, this involves working with questionable
global organizations and expanding on chain. This includes issuing stable
coins denominated in other currencies besides the USD to appease
(43:09):
foreign governments and regulators. Make no mistake. At this rate,
it's more than likely that every national currency will have
its own stable coin issued by the Center Consortium, a
perfect synthetic CBDC, and as with USDC, all these synthetic
CBDCs will be backed by the government debt of their
(43:29):
respective regions. This means you'll have no choice but to
subsidize your government spending and lower interest rates for institutions
when the powers that be inevitably phase out cash. But wait,
there's more. Just the other day, Circle announced that it
will be expanding to five additional smart contract cryptocurrencies and
(43:51):
introducing a cross chain interoperability protocol for its stable coins.
It even announced that it had partnered with block to
bring u SDC to Bitcoin. Heck, Jack Dawsey is a
Bitcoin MAXI. If that didn't make it clear enough, Circle
is also quickly taking over every single smart contract cryptocurrency
(44:12):
I reckon it won't belong. Before we see Circle start
to buy stakes in the proof of stake blockchains, It's
stable coins are circulating on and it's possible this is
happening already. With its stable coin reserves being held by
the FED, Circle could potentially have access to unlimited liquidity
a k a. The money printer. With the money printer
(44:34):
in its grip, Circle will in fact have the power
to take total control of every proof of stake smart
contract cryptocurrency in existence. Case and point. Ethereum creator Vitality
Terrant recently admitted that Circle will have the power to
decide the future of forks on Ethereum due to its
stable coin liquidity. At the rate that Circle is growing,
(44:56):
this will soon be the case for every other proof
of state smart contract crypto on the market. For what
it's worth, it looks like Bitcoin's BTC and physical cash
will offer protection from the upcoming dystopia that Circle and
its affiliates are not so subtly rushing to roll out.
I mean, why else would Jeremy hold most of his
(45:17):
wealth in cash and BTC? Maybe, just maybe he knows
what's coming now. To Jeremy's credit, he wants stable coins
to be as cash like as possible, meaning transaction privacy
and no k y C. The problem is that the
regulators will probably never allow this, and the institution's Circle
(45:37):
has aligned itself with explicitly want to take control of
every transaction you and I make forever. This brings me
back to something I mentioned earlier, and that's Circle's co
founders have a history of building up and then exiting
cutting edge tech companies. This makes me wonder whether Jeremy
and Sean will do the same with Circle once it's stock.
(46:00):
As I p oed via this back. This is because
Circle could an ironically become the most valuable company on
the planet if it succeeds in its mission of literally
recalibrating the whole global financial system around stable coins. The
only issue with this analysis is that fiat currencies are
failing and stable coins probably won't help much. This is
(46:24):
something Jeremy seems to be hyper aware of, and I
reckon it's why he's so bullish on BTC, despite Circles
having ditched Bitcoin half a decade ago. As such, it's
probably wise to watch whether he leaves Circle after its
I p O. If he does, then it probably means
he knows that Circle will inevitably fail. By now, you're
(46:46):
probably wondering which blockchain Jeremy believes will support all of
circles stable coins. Well, the short answer is all of them.
The Circle team seems to be genuinely blockchain agnostic, and
Jeremy believes that each smart contract cryptocurrency will have a
piece of the financial puzzle. Even so, it's clear that
(47:08):
Ethereum is currently the favorite, and that's simply because it's
security is unparalleled among smart contract cryptocurrencies. Oddly enough, Solana
appears to be the official chain for USDC according to
the Center Consortium, but this has probably changed after all
the outages in some then Circle will probably become the
(47:30):
most powerful company in cryptocurrency, maybe even the entire world,
but will arguably fail due to the fact that it's
fundamentally leveraging failing FIAT currencies. The silver lining is that
Circle's domination will make the average person comfortable with cryptocurrency.
And if I had my tinfoil hat on, I'd tell
you that was the end game. All along, partner with
(47:54):
all the international organizations and the financial system, convince them
to adopt stable coins, sneak BTC in through the back
door with an I m F SDR stable coin and
turn BTC into the world's next reserve currency. That is
an outcome I would love to see because the alternative
is eternal slavery. You can find out exactly what the
(48:18):
people in power are planning by watching our recent video
about a new kind of social credit score. The link
to that flick will be down in the description. Thank
you so much for listening to the coin Bureau podcast.
If you'd like to learn more about cryptocurrency, you can
visit our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com forward slash
coin Bureau. You can also go to coin bureau dot
(48:40):
com for loads more information about all things crypto. You
can follow me on Twitter at at coin bureau or
one word, and I'm also active on TikTok and Instagram too,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!