The Pomp Letter

To investors, The bitcoin network launched on January 3, 2009. In just over 15 years, the network has become the strongest computer network in the world. There are hundreds of millions of people who have exposure to bitcoin across the spot market, ETFs, and mining. And the bitcoin brand is recognized around the world. But those are just the high-level accomplishments so far. Marty Bent points out...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Consensus 2024! Consensus 2024 is happening May 29-31 in Austin, Texas. This year marks the tenth annual Consensus, making it the largest and longest-running event dedicated to all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3.  Don’t miss Bitcoin: We Are So Back, where Anthony Pompliano will discuss what the next bull market will look like, how it will differ from previ...

To investors, Bitcoin’s price has been falling in recent weeks. This may be surprising to market participants that expected the digital currency to rise aggressively after the halving, but those of you reading this letter daily probably had a different viewpoint. As I wrote to you on April 19th , Bitwise research analyst Juan Leon pointed out that bitcoin’s price action in the month after the halv...

To investors, There were six new crypto ETFs that started trading in Hong Kong on Tuesday. These were the first spot bitcoin and spot ether ETFs to launch in the region, but the trading volumes were quite lackluster. Total trading volume for the Hong Kong ETFs was slightly over $100 million . In comparison, the US debut for the bitcoin ETFs saw more than $4.5 billion in trading volume on day one e...

READER NOTE : This Thursday I am hosting a free webinar for anyone who is trying to transition into a new job in the bitcoin and crypto industry. Previously, my team and I have helped more than 3,000 people find a new role, so I will break down the lessons learned and provide actionable advice on how to make the jump efficiently. The event is completely free and I will also be joined by people fro...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Shortform! Shortform has the world’s best guides to 1000+ nonfiction books. Learn key points and gain insights you won't find anywhere else. Understand the world’s best ideas. * Crystal-clear logic — We take confusing ideas and explain them in plain and simple ways. Never get confused by a complicated book again. * Brilliant new insights — We add smart analysis,...

To investors, New industries bring new problems. The market has been focused on the various ramifications of bitcoin and crypto adoption, but these conversations have historically revolved around geopolitics, nation state acceptance, and portfolio construction. People find it easy to discuss the large, easy-to-identify ramifications. The devil is always in the details though. One of the small prob...

To investors The bitcoin halving is scheduled to happen later today. I asked Meta’s new AI model to explain what the halving was and here is the output: “The Bitcoin Halving is a preprogrammed event that occurs roughly every four years and impacts the production of bitcoin. The halving reduces the reward for mining Bitcoin transactions by half, which reduces the rate at which new coins are created...

To investors, The finance industry is built on capital appreciation and yield. Investors scour the world to find assets that will go up in price or assets that will give them income. That is what it all boils down to when investing. Each investor has a different view on which strategy to pursue. Warren Buffett is famous for avoiding assets that don’t produce cash-flow. Other investors seek capital...

To investors, The current economic situation is confusing to most investors. Many data points are pointing to an incoming recession, while the metrics that the Fed uses to gauge economic strength continue to show a hot economy with no signs of slowing down. Below are a few charts that highlight these differences. Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz shows “longer-term inflation expectations are rising agai...

To investors, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel over the weekend. This escalation of force did not come as a surprise to the United States and our allies. Days in advance, Iranian leadership told various countries that they planned to retaliate after Israel reportedly destroyed Iran’s embassy in Damascus, Syria . Thanks to this heads up, almost 100% of the 300 missiles launc...

To investors, Gold hit $2,400 over the last 24 hours, which is a new all-time high price for the precious metal. Most of you would not expect me to cover gold given my interest in bitcoin, but I think there are a few things worth calling out related to the recent rise in gold. First, when the price of gold rises most people will point to existing geopolitical turmoil as the main driver. In a Reute...

To investors, The inflation report this morning shows that the economic measurement is headed in the wrong direction. Year-over-year CPI came in at 3.5% and the month-over-month growth in inflation was 0.4%. This means that inflation is going up, not down, which is a major problem for the Federal Reserve. The central bank has been talking about cutting interest rates. The market has been expecting...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Espresso Displays! I normally work on my desktop computer and am hyper productive. The second that I leave my desk, I lose my productivity on a laptop. So I started to use a second screen and it seems to have fixed the issue. It took awhile to evaluate many different screens — Espresso Displays was by far the best one . I use it every day. I can’t imagine workin...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Shortform! Shortform has the world’s best guides to 1000+ nonfiction books. Learn key points and gain insights you won't find anywhere else. Understand the world’s best ideas. * Crystal-clear logic — We take confusing ideas and explain them in plain and simple ways. Never get confused by a complicated book again. * Brilliant new insights — We add smart analysis,...

To investors, I started writing The Pomp Letter in May 2018. Next month will mark 6 years of writing every morning about bitcoin and financial markets. Throughout this time, I have been the sole writer and operator behind our work. I started writing because it helped me to formulate my thoughts each day. You can’t write clearly if your thinking is messy. Although writing is the most selfish thing...

To investors, There is an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “ Bitcoin Is Soaring This Year. Goldman’s Crypto Skeptic Isn’t Biting .” The piece profiles Goldman Sachs’ Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, who happens to be the firm’s second-longest tenured partner. Although Sharmin has a storied career and deserves every ounce of respect she has earned throug...

To investors, The promise of crypto was that decentralization would rule the day. The story was centralized institutions had overreached and now we needed a new ownership or governance model in order to fully capture the potential of the internet. Bitcoin’s launch marked the creation of the first mass market asset that found product-market fit. Decentralized money has a very large addressable mark...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Espresso Displays! I normally work on my desktop computer and am hyper productive. The second that I leave my desk, I lose my productivity on a laptop. So I started to use a second screen and it seems to have fixed the issue. It took awhile to evaluate many different screens — Espresso Displays was by far the best one . I use it every day. I can’t imagine workin...

To investors, We hosted the inaugural Bitcoin Investor Day on Friday. There were over 800 people who attended the event, which made it the single largest gathering of institutional investors interested in bitcoin in history. Insane to see that level of turnout for an event that was put together in less than 100 days. The speaker lineup was really strong and I learned quite a bit. Here are a few of...

To investors, There is one phrase that has been seared into my brain over the last few months — “Depression or dog coins to a trillion.” This sentence was shared with me by Asymmetric’s Joe McCann during an interview where we discussed the current economic situation in America. Joe’s comment was meant to highlight the difficulty that the Federal Reserve is facing. The central bank can keep interes...

To investors, Bitcoin holders that previously showed strong-hands are starting to sell their bitcoin. This shouldn’t be a surprise — as the price of bitcoin rises, some percentage of holders are willing to sell their assets to take profit off the table. We can see the number of bitcoin in the circulating supply that had not moved in at least 1-year topped out at just over 70% from November 2023 to...

To investors, The bitcoin spot ETFs have sucked all the air out of the room over the last two months. With more than $60 billion collectively in the various ETFs and more than $1 billion in net inflows, there is good reason for so many people to be paying attention. But the new shiny development has allowed most people to stop thinking about a prior shiny story: nation-state adoption of bitcoin. B...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Espresso Displays! I normally work on my desktop computer and am hyper productive. The second that I leave my desk, I lose my productivity on a laptop. So I started to use a second screen and it seems to have fixed the issue. It took awhile to evaluate many different screens — Espresso Displays was by far the best one . I use it every day. I can’t imagine workin...

Today’s letter is brought to you by Bitcoin Investor Day! I am hosting the first Bitcoin Investor Day in New York City on March 22nd this year. It is an annual meeting for sophisticated Wall Street investors who are interested in bitcoin. Speakers include Cathie Wood, Mike Novogratz, Anthony Scaramucci, Mark Yusko, Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, Bitwise CEO, Head of Research at Fidelity & Va...