If you don’t believe life keeps giving you the same lesson until you pass it, go read the script God wrote for Leopold Aschenbrenner. > graduates Columbia at just 19 > joins FTX future fund > FTX blows up > joins OpenAI superalignment > gets fired for a “leak” > raises a $20b AI fund > fund blows up > and he’s not even 26 yet If he runs it back from here he’s a legend forever. If he doesn’t, he’s 25, he can just do it twice more.

Been a bit over a month since I posted this 6 month oil thesis. Back then half the “experts” were screaming Brent $150 soon. Glad I stayed skeptical. Oil dumped hard after, then Brent clawed back to ~$100, right into the zone I said to respect. Still see $100-120 as the level that matters. But should trim some cash off here right now. Almost certainly still get violent dumps before midterms (September - October?) once trump starts cycling the peace-deal/break-peace-deal playbook.

Reading this brought back a very specific feeling. I’ve been in crypto 13 years, long enough to watch things arrive looking like the future and leave without anyone announcing they were gone. Late 2017 I was flipping cryptokitties almost every day while eth went straight up. I explained them at dinner, to grown adults, and I probably sounded insane, but I wasn’t talking about cartoon cats. I thought I was looking at the beginning of digital ownership, culture moving onchain, and a new kind of internet where users could actually own the things they created and collected. I didn’t think I had caught a mania. I thought I had seen the future a little earlier than everyone else. Then 2018 came and robbed me blind… the money disappeared fast. But the belief took years to die. And even then, it didn’t really die. It just kept coming back wearing new clothes. NFTs, creator economy, socialfi, onchain social, creator coins. Not all of them were the same, obviously, but somewhere underneath them was a future I had already wanted to believe in once. That’s why the ideas that hurt the most when they die are rarely the obvious scams. Nobody mourns those. It’s the BEAUTIFUL ones, the ones that made sincere people think, “if this works, crypto actually changes the world.” You don’t just invest in those ideas! You build your life around them! You make friends through them, attach your name to them, spend years defending them, and start living inside a future that hasn’t arrived yet!! Then one day the market goes somewhere else. Usually there’s no dramatic ending. The users stop showing up. The group chats get quieter. The people who used to post about it every day slowly move on. The thesis still sounds beautiful when you say it out loud, it’s just that nothing is walking toward it anymore. You’re the last one standing in a room explaining what it was supposed to become. That’s a hard thing to admit, especially in public. Because you’re burying years of conviction, relationships, reputation, and a version of yourself that genuinely believed you were helping build what came next. Reading @jessepollak’s post today reminded me I’ve watched this happen over and over again, to other people and to myself. People outside crypto think the hardest losses are financial. After enough cycles, you realize some of the hardest losses are the stories you had to stop believing, and the futures you had already started living in. I still don’t know if I’ve fully let go of all of mine. Probably not.

Most crypto traders don’t actually want to learn stocks. They spend all their time looking for the stocks that require the least stock knowledge. Then still wonder why they’re not profitable when the reason is painfully fucking obvious.

To sum up the definitely “not suspicious at all” moments from the World Cup lately: > Argentina just became the first country in World Cup history to reach the semis without facing a single top 15 team > England’s goalkeeper hits his own teammate. Norway complains and gets the game’s only yellow card. > Croatia’s goal gets disallowed because the sensor can detect a fking strand of hair touching the ball. > England’s goal stands because the exact same sensor apparently can’t detect the ball smashing into a giant camera cable. Incredible technology. It even knows which country it’s supposed to work for.

If you’re not aware of your capacity to harm, your “goodness” is fragile. FAKE. Easily broken. Y’all should be careful around those who make “but i’m a good/harmless person” their whole identity. The worst are the self-appointed saints. They’ll guilt-trip you into being “good” by their definition, moral-police everything you do, while holding themselves to none of it. Because in their head they’re always at the moral high ground, aka “PURE”, so the rules are for you, not them. Naive people often get possessed by the same forces they deny exist, because they genuinely believe “I could never do that/how can anyone do xx?!” A “harmless” person who’s never been truly challenged isn’t good. They’re just WEAK. Seems fine now. But one thing snaps and they turn on you worse than any openly shitty person could, because you never saw it coming. I’m not saying the obvious assholes are better. I’m saying real goodness was never the absence of darkness. It belongs to those who’ve been pushed to their limit, who’ve stared straight into their own capacity for harm, felt the pull… and still chose NOT to. Every single time. Deliberately. That’s the only good I trust. The kind that had every reason to break and didn’t.

If you give up on crypto every time the price dips, you'll never make money in Web3. Go ahead and spread FUD if you want. But if you're yelling "Web3 is dead" just for engagement, you never believed in the first place. Real conviction isn't shouting about decentralization when everything's pumping. It's believing the world will come back when everyone's calling it dead, your wallet's bleeding red, and the market feels frozen solid. $BTC dropped from 20k to 3k in 2018. For two and a half years, nobody even mentioned crypto. The world thought the bubble had popped for good. Then 2022 hits and it crashes from 69k to 15k. Mainstream media writes "digital gold is dead" again. What happened? The people who stayed through it all became the ones everyone else calls "lucky." The volatility you're seeing right now is nothing compared to what this space has survived. The ones who hold their conviction at the bottom are the only ones who deserve the next cycle's celebration. Web3 isn't just technology and finance. It's belief. And belief means you still trust it when everyone else has walked away. So where do you stand right now?

I swear this entire world is a fking joke. OpenAI named its 3 new models Sol, Terra, and Luna. So… somewhere inside OpenAI, a crypto intern put the 2022 collapse starter pack into a naming doc as a joke. Then 14 directors, 6 branding people, 3 lawyers, and one guy named Chad from product all said: BEAUTIFUL. Ship it. Yea, this feels like the future. Is someone trying to warn us about the post-IPO price action?

Why am I not surprised that Europe somehow managed to make air conditioning into a sin? So their braindead logic in summary is: If planet gets hotter it’s climate change. If winter gets colder it’s also climate change. If electricity prices explode, it is because we must fight climate change. If you want cheap energy to not die in a heatwave? You’re a selfish asshole. If you support schools and hospitals having ACs so people don’t get slow roasted like supermarket rotisserie chickens, then you’re a far right eco-terrorist. EXCUSE ME, where is policy in modern politics anymore? If you want cheap energy you’re a populist scum. If you want safe streets you’re a fascist. If you want borders you’re a nazi. If yall love suffering that much as a passion might as well consider finding a cave and go back to the Stone Age

Lately every other headline is some “expert” warning oil’s about to rip to $150. I got curious and went and tested it. Pulled the inventory, flow and freight data and checked whether any of it backs the call. Short version: the risk is real, but $150 is the wrong thing to root for. Oil’s elevated and staying there. Crude’s genuinely stressed, Hormuz still isn’t normal, the buffer’s wearing thin, US crude drew 7 weeks straight and the market’s already leaned hard on SPR releases. The squeeze window is late June into July. So the tail is real. But $100-120 is the level I respect, call it 60% over six months. $150 plus is one in four, and only if the buffer truly snaps. Brent’s around $90 right now while the US and Iran trade fire and float a Hormuz reopening deal that could land this weekend. Even at the peak of the panic this spring, physical Brent never even made it to $150. Nobody’s betting $150 next week. Me neither. And if that deal lands, this cools off faster, not slower. The setup I actually want is dull. Brent grinding between $100-120 with a slow, messy normalization is the zone where the people who move oil get paid, cargoes shoved onto long routes, ships busy, system inefficient, demand still intact. Push it to $150 and hold it there and you kill that. Runs get cut, demand caves, less to ship, and high oil flips to bad-for-freight. The moonshot eats the trade everyone thinks it creates. And the tankers already agree. If the shock were here, freight would be printing. It’s dead. Rates 50-80% under stress, MR Atlantic at $35k against an $80k median, boats everywhere with nothing to haul. When those rates crawl back toward stress, that’s the tell. Not yet. So instead of playing (or praying lol) for the $150-160, I’m personally watching the $100-120 grind, because that’s where it pays.

How to fuck 500 million people at once: Be @saylor. > phase 1: never sell your bitcoin > phase 2: sell a KIDNEY before you sell your bitcoin > phase 3: we sold the bitcoin > phase 4: i never said the company wouldn’t sell > phase 5: anyone with half a brain knew that > phase 6: enjoy your one kidney bestie

funny how so many of the big IPOs seem to be getting squeezed into Q4 funny how that‘s also when midterms election happen got a strong tingle that’s when the AI mania finally pops (financially) and US equities absolutely eat shit. something about this timeline feels way too neat and we’re about to witness one hell of a rug pull.

So I recently sold all my houses, cars, and most of my physical assets. Told some friends and… well they all think I lost my mind lol I’m not saying world’s gonna end tmr. Those who know me know I’m actually annoyingly optimistic. People say we’re already in a recession but I genuinely think the real correction hasn’t even started. And honestly a crash you’re prepared for is just opportunity. Prep the cash flow now and be ready when it hits. Few months ago I tweeted a 1920-1939 side by side with 2020-now and I was like aha this earth simulation game isn’t even trying to be surprising. America First was literally a 1920s slogan. Middle class getting wiped, kids going hard left, the right cashing in on the backlash, yada yada. Same movie. They didn’t even bother changing the lines. But it’s not just the 1930s. This “coincidental” pattern keeps showing up Every time in history you get this specific set of things at once: > “empire” past its prime but won’t admit it > up and coming power that stopped playing nice > new tech nobody has rules for > wealth gap gone cartoonish > globalization reversing > institutions bleeding trust while pretending everything’s fine UNFORTUNATELY, it’s never ended quietly. Crash, war, usually both. Looking back, 1890-1914 literally looked unstoppable. > globalization booming, tech changing everything > markets ripping, rich getting richer, international trade at record highs > everyone convinced world had become too interconnected for a major war BUT then reality arrived. > 1914 WW I, 1918 spanish flu, 1921-1923 Weimar hyperinflation, 1929 great depression 1939 WW II. Just imagine you’re a civilian living in between any one of those events, literally each one felt like the worst thing that could happen until the next one hit. And I know how this sounds. This random green cat on X reads a bit of history and suddenly thinks the sky is falling. i would’ve scrolled past this a year ago too lol. But just look at how familiar the setup feels rn. A debt spiral. A rising challenger. AI detonating entire industries. Institutional trust collapsing. Millions of young people looking at the future and deciding they got sold a lie. You see it too right? That’s usually not when history calms down. And sure, you’ll say the system survived 2008. Central banks have the tools. The world’s too connected to actually break. You know who said basically the same thing? Everyone in 1913. A famous economist Norman Angell wrote a bestseller arguing war between major powers had become impossible because their economies were too intertwined. And guess what? A year later they were at war. The irony is he wasn't even wrong. The thing everyone pointed to as proof the system was safe ended up being what made the fallout global. Look at the positioning now. Stocks at all time highs. And everyone, I mean everyone, priced like things stay calm forever. Markets, governments, companies, all quietly betting on stability while the ground under it gets shakier every year. Trigger? No idea. Nobody ever knows. Franz Ferdinand (the dude who got shot and basically started WWI) wasn’t on a single dashboard in June 1914. So yea, I sold most of my illiquid assets. Still got stocks and crypto. Stocks prob exiting before end of year. Maybe I look crazy for a year or two. But I’d rather be wrong than be the dude on his knees in financial ruins asking God why he saw the train coming and stayed on the tracks anyway. “This time is different” is probably the most expensive sentence in history. And lately it’s the only thing I hear. And before someone says I’ve lost my mind, ask yourself something. Why do so many billionaires keep buying land in New Zealand? Why do people with private jets, intelligence briefings, and more money than they’ll ever spend keep building backup plans? Maybe they’re paranoid. Maybe I’m paranoid. Or maybe ordinary people are always the ones told everything’s fine right before they become fuel.

Gonna share my 2026 hedging thesis (long tweet warning) I call it: how to get paid even if crypto bleeds and tech beta starts vomiting into year end. Strictly my personal opinion. All info below are based on PUBLIC sources. Not financial advice, DYOR With crypto potentially facing another 20-40% drawdown into year-end, I’m increasingly convinced that select oil and tanker equities are one of the cleaner hedges right now. AND NO, this isn't another tweet about gambling long or short on crude. The play is shareholder yield: dividends, supplemental dividends, and buybacks, backed by strong free cash flow, manageable leverage, and real asset exposure. Sized right, the basket could return 20-30% cash this year. My thesis is not “which oil stock does 2x or 5x.” It’s defensive: these companies are generating exceptional cash in the current freight and energy setup. Many run with low single-digit net debt to EBITDA, and select names can deliver double-digit shareholder yield through 2026 if rates stay firm. That’s real cash flow while crypto chops, and honestly I’d rather have that than be all-in into tech growth names that offer zero yield buffer when risk assets correct. Buying now can still qualify you for upcoming quarterly dividends, but you need to own shares before the official ex-date. Make sure you check share buyback policies too, because that’s where the real combo comes from: dividends + buybacks + potential share price gains. ALSO AN IMPORTANT TAX NOTE everyone should know: > US taxpayers: want the lower qualified-dividend tax rate instead of getting cooked at ordinary income rates? Usually you need to hold shares unhedged for 61+ days within the 121-day window around the ex-date. > Non-US investors: normal US dividends can get hit with a 30% withholding tax slap. BUT many tanker names are foreign-domiciled, so the tax haircut can be much lighter. Don’t be lazy though, check domicile, broker, and local tax before celebrating. The near-term dividend window is worth watching, but I’m separating confirmed declarations from forecasted ex-dates. Confirmed/recent shareholder-return updates: > ASC announced on april 29 (literally yesterday) that it is doubling its payout ratio to two-thirds of adjusted earnings, effective Q1 2026. Q1 MR spot TCE was around 33.7k/day, and Q2-to-date was around 50k/day. Dividend amount/date still needs official declaration. > Var Energi (OSL:VAR/VARRY) has a confirmed 300M Q1 2026 distribution payable June 12, with another 300M guided for Q2. > Eni (E/ENI.MI) confirmed a 2026 dividend of €1.10/share and raised its buyback plan by about 90% to €2.8B. > TTE raised its first 2026 interim dividend by 5.9% to €0.90/share and doubled Q2 buybacks to $1.5B. Not a May/June capture name, but good shareholder-return ballast. For the tanker watchlist: > DHT has one of the cleanest payout formulas: 100% of ordinary net income as quarterly cash dividends. Q1 payout/date still needs declaration. > TRMD’s last official distribution was $0.70/share. Any May dates floating around are watchlist inputs until TORM officially declares. > FRO paid $1.03/share for Q4, and Q1 looks strong with VLCC days booked around 107.1k/day. But the next dividend is still pending. > INSW’s most recent payout was $2.15/share combined ($0.12 regular + $2.03 supplemental) for Q4 2025. Next payout depends on Q1 results. > HAFN (product/chemical tankers) raised its latest quarterly dividend to $0.1762/share and is seeking a new 10% buyback mandate at the 2026 AGM. Next payout pending. > STNG is more buyback + quality product tanker exposure than a huge dividend-capture name. > NAT has visible variable yield, but I’d treat it as higher risk. The basket has 4 buckets: Variable/formula-based tanker payouts: ASC, DHT, TRMD, HAFN, FRO, INSW, NAT (highest dividend torque in the basket, but also the most variable) Product tanker buyback discipline: STNG (still shipping exposure, but more buyback + quality operator than huge dividend capture) Big energy shareholder-return ballast: SU, TTE, E/ENI.MI, CNQ, REPYY/REP.MC, OSL:VAR/VARRY (less sexy, but more grown-up hedge: dividends, buybacks, scale, and balance sheet durability) Buyback/growth oil names: VIST, ATH. TO (not dividend names, but buybacks can still create shareholder yield without sending you a cash dividend) see the table below for the full visual overview with qualification/timing notes on every name (including higher-risk examples like PBR) IMPORTANT: this is not a free dividend glitch. Stocks often adjust down around the ex-date, sometimes more than the dividend itself. variable dividends can disappear if rates collapse. Buybacks only matter if management buys at sane prices. So, the setup I like: own cash-return machines while the market is still underpricing how long energy cash flow can stay strong. Why this hedge over the usual alternatives: > tech stocks: still risk-on beta, no yield buffer > bonds: help in recession, messy if inflation/oil risk stays sticky > cash: safe but real returns are unexciting > long dated puts: clean hedge, expensive theta bleed if timing is wrong The tanker angle is different because strong Q1/Q2 cash flow can come back as dividends, supplemental dividends and buybacks. (not fixed, but in the right rate environment, cash returns fast) Even if Hormuz reopens tomorrow, the system doesn't reset overnight: > inventories still need to rebuild > refined products can stay tight > trade routes can stay inefficient > Q1 cash flow already happened > Q2 rates are the next thing to watch Crypto for asymmetric growth, oil-linked yield for cash flow ballast. I don't need every hedge to 5x, sometimes the boring trade just keeps paying you while crypto does whatever crypto does.

If you want to stop losing money on trading the hype every time a Hormuz headline pops up, here’s what I look at every day instead: > daily tanker transits through the strait > Asian crude inventories > diesel/gasoline/jet fuel draws > refining margins > product tanker rates > Brent-Dubai spread > war-risk insurance premiums these signals tell you more about the next 4–8 weeks than any headline. better than candle astrology and much better than kols cosplay-trading “insider sources”

every revolutionary movement follows the same arc: 1. idealists build something because the old system failed them 2. it works. attracts people who want the benefits but not the philosophy 3. money enters 4. mainstream users outnumber originals 100:1 5. ABSORPTION, the product evolves to serve the majority, loses “soul” 6. the originals feel betrayed, go underground or leave punk rock did this, open source did this, the internet did this, crypto is doing it right now. But the absorption is never total. encryption was classified as a literal weapon, cypherpunks fought a legal war just to export PGP, now E2E encryption is default on whatsapp alone for 3 billion people. Linux never won the desktop but it runs every server on earth. the revolution didn’t “die”, it just gets absorbed so completely nobody remembers it was one. Crypto has two paths from here. Path A: Absorption. 99% buy bitcoin through ETFs. AI agents settle payments on-chain because they can’t open bank accounts. crypto becomes invisible plumbing. nobody calls it “Crypto”, nobody cares about the philosophy, but permissionless rails run underneath everything. Path B: cascades of war, sanctions, currency collapse, institutional failure becomes a lived reality for millions at once. sovereignty stops being philosophy and becomes survival. the cypherpunk ethos stops being a subculture and becomes the default because the alternative already failed. the difference between path A and path B is just one crisis nobody saw coming. most people are only pricing in path A.

google: “we can crack bitcoin in 9 minutes and 2029 is deadline to figure out a solution” you know we’re near bear market lows when quantum fud starts trending again. But their best chip has 105 qubits, the attack needs 500,000. that’s like a guy with a ladder saying he’s going to the moon. ETH’s been prepping since 2018, BTC has draft proposals (BIP-360) but no coordinated plan yet. So next 5 years realistically: > quantum hardware improves, stays nowhere near attack-capable > ETH finishes migration first, pressures btc to move > BTC community starts seriously pushing BIP-360 > Satoshi’s coins become the loudest talking point forcing urgency (bottleneck isn’t crypto, it’s consensus) What you can do: if you hold coins in old wallets or addresses you’ve already spent from, pay extra attention. those have exposed public keys. Beyond that: > don’t use taproot (bc1p) for long-term cold storage > use native segwit (bc1q). your public key stays hidden until you spend > this doesn’t make risk zero, but it greatly reduces your exposure window THIS IS NOT a doomsday story. If you sell your bag over quantum fud in a bear market and miss the next ath you have no one to blame but yourself lol. same energy as the people who panic sold at 16k over ftx in 2022. Breathe! Accumulate!! we’ve seen this movie before.

relax AI won’t take your job, it’ll just take your weekends your sleep your hairline and eventually your pulse. let me explain with a wall street love story: > you’re a 1976 Wall Street trader > pen and index cards, screams orders into a phone pit > handles 1 sector. goes home at 5 > 1985, you get a computer, real time quotes, electronic execution > now handles 3 sectors. goes home at 8 > 1999 you get the internet, scans global markets from your desk > now covers 5 sectors. goes home at 10 > 2026, you get AI, does the research of a whole analyst team solo > now does the work of 10 people. doesn’t go home > you’re now the most productive trader who ever lived > you die at 43 > but hey at least you were productive > they’ll replace you when you’re dead though so don’t worry about that part