The Joy of Investing

In two of my prior posts I showed the crypto market capitalization re-testing a bottom and then begin the turn north. That appears to be holding as a valuable entry point into this market.

Subsequent event:

The close I use is 7:00 PM EST. The market pulled back and we did not hold onto the new higher high. Be careful and watch the FED decision tomorrow on interest rates as it will cause a reaction. Closing above $3.325 trillion will set a new high for this cycle.

Below is a post with the heading “Economic Spin vs Reality” where I sought clarity on the trade deficit movements and offered my opinion on the topic. Today, the Kobeissi letter addressed trucking and captures the point I made.

Utilizing the past has proven to be wise. The phrase, history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes, is the basis of my understanding of investing. Two charts are before you:

1) Historic pattern of crypto market capitalization and movements from each four year halving is educational. The pattern is an important tool.
2) After a turbulent decline in crypto in the second half of 2025, the current move from a support point should not be ignored.

I read the below letter on “X” as posted by the Kobeissi Letter. I responded and have included my response at the bottom of this document.

The Kobeissi Letter
@KobeissiLetter

The US’ goods trade deficit narrowed +$18.6 billion, or +24%, in August, to -$59.6 billion, one of the largest monthly improvements this year. Imports declined -5%, to $340.4 billion, the 2nd-lowest since May 2024. This also marks the biggest drop in imports in 4 months. At the same time, exports rose slightly, to $280.8 billion, the highest since April. Since March 2025, the goods trade deficit has improved by +$76.8 billion, or +56%. Adjusted for inflation, the merchandise trade deficit narrowed to -$83.7 billion in August, the lowest since the end of 2023. Tariffs are reshaping the US trade.

My Response and evolving view of our future:

Why would you not add to this piece that advance ordering of foreign goods to get pre-tariff prices exploded the trade imbalance? AND now, ordering of foreign goods has fallen off a cliff because there is no need to order for tomorrow when you overstocked in advance of the tariff policy?
You should have been critical of the extreme variations from month-to-month. You should have noted that the economy is and will slow as the shipping, port, rail and trucking industries experience a forced recession.
Connect the dots.

At the moment, the Old World is in economic trouble.

We need an offset, and that is:

AI cannot come fast enough! It will feed the boom in technology investments that need to be made to service the data center demand, and then the renovation and growth in infrastructure investments (power), and then to every industry thereafter.

TJC

To view this in a larger print format, download the PDF and zoom into the PDF document.

Note: Material differences of % changes of price vs Mkt cap are signals to dig deeper into why the difference exists. One cause may be the issuance of more tokens which may restrain price changes even though the Market Cap moves higher.

Crypto Prices February 2024

What impact on the Crypto Market Value may the 2024 BTC Halving have based on the 2020 BTC Halving impact? How does a $3.9 Trillion total MV, or a MV increase of $2.3 Trillion from the recent 2024 MV low sound? Digest this chart of the Deltas for a while.

As I have stated many times, I want my friends and family to understand what is taking place behind the scenes that the general public is not focusing on or paying attention to. Education provided by me to you, and then from you to those you know, is what kindness is all about (which makes it your job to educate others by sharing the news you access on the topic of Blockchain and the transformation of our financial infrastructure). I believe and have believed since 2015, that Blockchain technology is revolutionary, and we all should be responsible to ourselves, to our family and to our friends by being educators.

For Educational Purposes Only

As I have stated many times, I want my friends and family to understand what is taking place behind the scenes that the general public is not focusing on or paying attention to. Education provided by me to you, and then from you to those you know, is what kindness is all about (which makes it your job to educate others by sharing the news you access on the topic of Blockchain and the transformation of our financial infrastructure). I believe and have believed since 2015, that Blockchain technology is revolutionary, and we all should be responsible to ourselves, to our family and to our friends by being educators.

Please listen to the video below in its entirety. I hope it motivates you to start following news stories on this topic. That does not mean learning code or diving deep into the infrastructure. What it does require is for you to look at the world today and to imagine the benefits to the services we depend on, to the efficiencies that may be realized and to the opportunity to be a part of the journey as a participant in Blockchains earliest days of adoption.

I never give financial advice and I am not doing so now. What I do provide are the pathways to learn. I just want you to learn.

Tom

This video is critical to watch. It focuses on information that is right there in front of us but which so few people are taking advantage of. Please watch the entire video. I will give you a test later (only joking).

Video on financial industry adoption of Blockchain Technology and Public awareness
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750918014411894971

The next two links are to the company Quant’s website. I believe in Quant’s mission. Early on I saw that Quant’s business model was focused on interoperability between Blockchains. I viewed that as critical because I foresee each Central Bank in the world forming their own individual blockchains to distribute digital money within their economies in the form of Central Bank Digital Currencies (“CBDCs”). This will enable governments to continue to control and influence their economies within their borders by controlling their own money supply growth in digital form. But the governments must be able to transact between their Central Bank and the rest of the world’s many Central Banks. That is the proposition that Quant and other Blockchain technology companies are focusing on as they work with banking institutions around the world. Quant just completed their role in Project Rosalind (you should Google it). Quant worked with the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements to utilize blockchain technology for Bank-to-Bank transactions, and to coordinate transactions between the local bank and the retail consumer. This is Public Information, yet the general public is not paying attention to it.

You have a choice: Focus on becoming aware or remain unaware as most of the global citizenry is. These are still early days, but this technology is becoming pervasive in many sectors of society. You have a role to play in educating as many people as you can to give everyone the opportunity to understand this incredible transformation that is taking place right before our eyes.

Quant
https://quant.network/

Quant and the Financial Markets
https://quant.network/financial-institutions/?_gl=1*1y8j3fa*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTQ1Njc4Njk5LjE3MDY1NDY4ODc.*_ga_KEN210YEFE*MTcwNjU0Njg4NS4xLjAuMTcwNjU0Njg4NS4wLjAuMA..

With love and kindness,

DeFi has grown tremendously in scale and scope in recent years. The Ethereum blockchain, which underpins much of DeFi activity, settled $2.5trn-worth of transactions in the second quarter of 2021, including payments and transactions to facilitate trading and lending. (Visa, a payments giant, settled about the same amount in the same period; Nasdaq, a stock exchange, traded six times as much.) Around $90bn of collateral is being used for various DeFi functions, compared with less than $1bn in early 2018. More than half is held in the five most popular DeFi applications, but developers are working on more than a hundred others, dozens of which are rapidly amassing assets. Innovations, such as automated marketmakers, arbitrage systems and self-stabilising currency regimes, are already pushing the boundaries of financial technology.

Subscribe to The Economist for the full article

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/09/18/adventures-in-defi-land

The war over money is heating up: For the first time in more than a century, the dollar’s supremacy is being challenged. The rise of cryptocurrencies and “stablecoins” has spurred a rethinking of what a currency is, who regulates it, and what it means when it’s no longer controlled by a national government. The dollar itself may be getting an overhaul, transformed into a digital currency that can travel instantly around the world, holding up against Bitcoin or any other token.

Cryptos are now worth $2.1 trillion, doubling in value this year alone. Bitcoin, worth nearly $900 billion, recently became legal tender in El Salvador—a controversial monetary shift in the country, but one that may pave a path for other developing nations. Capital is flooding into companies that are building everything from trading platforms to exchanges for trading new digital assets like non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Investors are also trading tokens on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, and they’re earning high yields by “staking” their tokens to network operators.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/coming-war-money-cryptos-51631845330?mod=hpsubnav