Bitcoin Roundup

Bank Of America, Citigroup May Launch Credit Cards With 10% Rate

This is obviously in response to President Trump recently floating capping credit card interest rates at 10%. First, a comment on that concept: price fixing never works. There are countless examples throughout history that prove this time and again. Capping interest rates is price fixing. The interest rate is the price of the credit card debt. If forced to cooperate, I would expect credit card companies to pull back the limits on their existing borrowers’ cards meaningfully, and new issuance would drop to near zero. 10% is probably lower than the average personal unsecured loan interest rate across the marketplace. You can’t legislate the math away. Now, to this move by the lenders. This reads to me like a proactive move to appease Trump and avoid an outright cap on rates across the industry. In any event, this is not going to save the economy from structural deficits and the side effects of being the world reserve currency. We continue to treat the symptoms, not the disease (fiat money), for now.

Onramp Bitcoin Statutory Trust Shareholder Letter

The team at Onramp are top notch, and their shareholder letter this year makes a powerful real estate analogy around the distribution of old coins we have seen this cycle. Here’s the TLDR, but I encourage you to read it in full:

“Consider the American West in the mid-19th century. The early homesteaders, pioneers, and railroad barons staked vast, concentrated claims. For towns, commerce, and industry to eventually flourish, those massive tracts had to be subdivided and sold to new arrivals. The distribution of land signaled the beginning of the economy rather than the end of the frontier.”

Hard Negotiations with Allies

Michael McNair is quickly becoming a go-to for macro commentary for me. His assessment of the Trump strategy is intriguing. It’s not quite 4D chess, but perhaps 3D checkers. It seems effective, but might have limitations. We live in interesting times.