Why? FTX’s biggest asset as of Thursday was $2.2bn worth of a cryptocurrency called Serum. Serum’s total market value was $88m on Sat, acc to CryptoCompare. Personally I doubt 10cent on $ will be returned to creditors in some years.
Bankman-Fried personally seems to own shares in Robinhood.
Some value there to be recovered for FTX creditors in a lengthy court process but by now it’s obvious the guy used FTX funds to finance his personal holdings.
Given how young this unregulated space is: (a) assume more „FTX issues“ to come to light soon; (b) expect most retailers wanting to liquidate their coins (if they even can) to buy safe $ bills 💵 (oh the irony); which (c) pushes all coins (much) lower in coming weeks.
If an exchange goes bust, its users’ „digital assets“ (funny name I know) will go into the bankruptcy estate that lawyers & advisors divvy up: Creditor rankings for payouts means „customers“ come last. Watch & learn with laser eyes…!
The only thing that matters for any asset when trust vanishes is liquidity. For an exchange however, it always was the only thing that mattered. An exchange going bust & lawyers taking over for years is the mother of “self-feeding” coin value destructions.
In a bankruptcy process, the administrator is by definition a destress seller which makes it hard to recover fair value even for the best trophy assets.
Now take a look at the asset & liability table of FTX…
The list divided assets into liquid, less liquid & illiquid.
SRM (Serum) is the largest single asset at $2.2bn valued. We don’t have ownership no but SRM is distressed (-27% as I write this) with a total market cap of $67m for 100% of tokens. Assume nil value!
Again, we don’t know how many Alameda owned but at least there seems a $5bn market cap left, although that is falling quickly…I suspect some value is recoverable here but never the quoted $900m. Perhaps $50-100m ?
Next: FTT was FTX/Alameda’s own token: a zero buy definition - not $550m - although the market hasn’t fully priced that yet (market cap still $230m for 100% tokens).
On this platform, certain perma bulls keep pushing a bullish crude narrative based on relative U.S. inventories—day after day, for three years now.
Their logic: Total U.S. crude inventories (including the SPR) are at 838 million barrels (orange line), 200 million barrels below the 10-year average → bullish!
Yet, inventories keep falling, and prices remain stuck in a range. Clearly, they are wrong.
1/9 @UrbanKaoboy @Iris62655179 @BrentRuditLeo
The problem with their logic?
a) The U.S. is no longer the marginal importer of crude oil—Asia is (or was).
b) U.S. inventories are artificially high on a 10-year average due to the shale boom, which took off in 2014. Shale growth and Covid distort the data, keeping inventories (ex SPR) elevated. So any 5- or 10-year comparison is meaningless—period.
2/n US Crude Oil Inventory ex SPR
Including SPRs, the picture looks more normalised - but not tight. But does the US really need 700mb of strategic reserves in 2025? I don't think so.
Yesterday, I shared a few thoughts that I’d like to expand on, especially given how volatile the current tariff landscape under this admin has become.
Navigating it isn’t just difficult—it’s nearly impossible to avoid missteps. Hopefully some traders will expand on my thoughts...
1/n
What do we know?
As at 23 March 2025, Comex copper price in New York is trading at 14% premium to LME in London. Buying a tonne of copper in NY costs $11,213 versus 9,842 in London, $1,371 per tonne more than in London.
2/n
Why is that? Because of tariff FEARS, not tariffs.
Traders are hedging future risk of potential tariffs on all forms of the raw material, such as cathodes, concentrates, ores, and even scrap. But there aren't such tariffs in place for copper yet (unlike alumnium).
The current Comex price action in the U.S. is basically a Trump tariff trade mirage and is otherwise as misleading of fundaments as the May 2024 price action of which I warned on multiple occasions.
1/n $/pound
In May 2024 however, U.S. price action was more in synch with London. But it didn't reflect weak Chinese housing & construction fundamentals which has been 15-30% of GLOBAL copper use for the past two decades. Today, U.S. prices trade as if borders close tomorrow.
2/n Comex - LME arb in $/t
Unlike May 2024, copper blue chips like $FCX, however, do not buy the rally. So at least it seems that the equity market understands the tariff aspect of the copper price mirage.
In this episode, we discuss China's 2nd of 5 economic paths it can follow.
This episode will also focus on Xi the leader. To understand Xi means to better understand China's economic path forward.
1/n #China
Can China replace malinvestment with more consumption?
Answer: Maybe a little bit & over a long time frame, but President Xi does not want to focus on this path. Instead, he wants to implement his socialist utopia.
2/n
Yes, China’s rising entrepreneurs were welcomed by the Communist Party for at least two decades. But all of that is in reverse.
Under Xi Jinping, China has moved full circle: from low growth & low freedom in the pre-reform era back towards something similar today.
In this episode, we discuss China's investment-led growth model & the first of 5 economic paths China can follow.
As you would expect, also this episode is full of Chinese characteristics!
1/n #China
Starting in 1990s, China’s economic engine has been fueled by capital investments.
Its central planning bureau defined GDP targets, picked winners and drove growth from debt-driven capital formations (green line).
2/n
Has any other nation tried this before, ever? Not to our knowledge.
We checked at ALL G20 economies and their respective growth models for past 70 years. 45% capital formation share is a unique experiment in economic history.
Over the past 3 years, we made some controversial calls in commodities. We decided to exit our oil holding in Aug 2022, we went short natgas in early 2023 or called for copper to go lower in May.
Why? Because we have an egde on China.
1/n #China
Yes, mainstream media picked up pace on important issues facing China today.
Most came to understand that the property bubble burst, that the economy is slowing, that geopolitical frictions are emerging, that there is too much debt.
But do they understand the underlying forces that drive these issues?
2/n
While the majority of these facts are known, most Western observers, investors & industrialists do not fully appreciate their interdependence & the structural changes that are unfolding in China today.