U.S. savings plunge to a near-65-year low, the Treasury liquidates $1B in Iranian crypto, and experts warn the Strait of Hormuz may never fully recover.
The crypto seizure section is the one worth sitting with. “Just outright grabbed the wallets” is a sovereign-scale version of something most individual savers never really price. Every place you hold money carries a counterparty, and that counterparty has its own incentives and failure modes.
The takeaway isn’t “self-custody or die.” A sanctioned state is not a useful template for a family managing its savings. The takeaway is narrower and more useful. Know exactly who can touch what you own, under what conditions, and be honest with yourself about the answer. For most people it’s an exchange or a broker, and that can be perfectly fine. What isn’t fine is not knowing.
I feel, at least for the average person, inflation numbers and CPI have become so disconnected with reality after we’ve seen prices continue to skyrocket with seemingly no signs of dropping. Although they think we won’t notice, the “small” price bumps eventually do add up and before we know it, price has doubled.
What makes this environment so fascinating is how disconnected the signals seem on the surface. Shrinking savings, crypto seizures, policy shifts, and market resilience all look like separate stories until you zoom out and realize they’re all part of the same liquidity and confidence cycle. The biggest opportunities often appear when most people are only looking at the headlines instead of the underlying flows.
On a separate note, I loved your article last week, and it partly inspired my own piece this week. Would love for you to check it out, and perhaps restack so it can reach a bigger audience!
Very interesting final point on the declining importance of the Strait of Hormuz - the implications of its weaponisation don’t just disappear when it reopens.
Realistically, to what extent do you think the acute dependence of global energy flows on the strait can be reduced?
The crypto seizure section is the one worth sitting with. “Just outright grabbed the wallets” is a sovereign-scale version of something most individual savers never really price. Every place you hold money carries a counterparty, and that counterparty has its own incentives and failure modes.
The takeaway isn’t “self-custody or die.” A sanctioned state is not a useful template for a family managing its savings. The takeaway is narrower and more useful. Know exactly who can touch what you own, under what conditions, and be honest with yourself about the answer. For most people it’s an exchange or a broker, and that can be perfectly fine. What isn’t fine is not knowing.
Very well said! It is important to understand who holds the strings!
I feel, at least for the average person, inflation numbers and CPI have become so disconnected with reality after we’ve seen prices continue to skyrocket with seemingly no signs of dropping. Although they think we won’t notice, the “small” price bumps eventually do add up and before we know it, price has doubled.
Anyone who shops for their own groceries can see how things are just more and more expensive!
What makes this environment so fascinating is how disconnected the signals seem on the surface. Shrinking savings, crypto seizures, policy shifts, and market resilience all look like separate stories until you zoom out and realize they’re all part of the same liquidity and confidence cycle. The biggest opportunities often appear when most people are only looking at the headlines instead of the underlying flows.
And with a stock market that is completely disconnected from how poorly Main Street is doing when compared to Wall Street
On a separate note, I loved your article last week, and it partly inspired my own piece this week. Would love for you to check it out, and perhaps restack so it can reach a bigger audience!
https://ananyaa2108.substack.com/p/ai-is-here-to-stay-exceptional-returns?r=7eglln&utm_medium=ios
Very interesting final point on the declining importance of the Strait of Hormuz - the implications of its weaponisation don’t just disappear when it reopens.
Realistically, to what extent do you think the acute dependence of global energy flows on the strait can be reduced?