America’s Debt Problem Is Bitcoin’s Bull Case | Andy Constan

Andy Constan (0:02)

The fact that the volatility has come down both daily, weekly, monthly, annual, all volatilities are falling, makes it more likely that I want to own it. No one has a lot of confidence in our policy makers. They haven't had confidence for as long as I can remember. So it's not a new thing that suddenly central banks have a credibility concern.

But it's getting worse, and the question is, what's next? Is it going to get worse or better? If it gets worse, that's good for Bitcoin. At some future point, we're not going to be able to afford what we are committed to providing our citizens, and inflation is going to drag down our purchasing power. That's inevitable. And as long as they continue to make choices like they've made, we're going to get the outcomes we're going to get. And frankly, that's a bull case for Bitcoin.

Danny Knowles (0:52)

Andy, it is great to see you again. You're the star of one of the more controversial shows I've done, that we did with Lin-Old and probably about a year ago now.

But how have you been?

Andy Constan (1:01)

Yeah, it was last summer of 2025 I love that one. It was so much fun. And I, you know, it turned out prescient at many levels, but I also learned a ton when we moved from DATs to stablecoins. So that's interesting and it's becoming more topical regarding, you know, the need for the treasury to do its financing. So it's lots of interesting stuff at this stage.

Danny Knowles (1:26)

Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to get into some more macro stuff today. I've got a fun idea, a little thought experiment I want to run through with you.

But for the audience, I think it's very relevant that they know your background before we do that. So do you want to just tell everyone, you know, what you've done for the last 30 years of your career?

Andy Constan (1:43)

Sure. Well, I'll start when I started, which is, gosh, it's now 40 years ago.

Started at Salomon Brothers in 1986 as a corporate finance analyst, and then moved to the trading floor after I was assigned to work on the Brady Commission that investigated the stock market of 1987 And that's when I fell in love with markets. And that anniversary is coming up, I guess, a few years, a few months, a month.

Anyway, I became a convertible bond trader, then became a, started to work in equity derivatives, then took on many management roles, and ultimately left Solomon as the head of the global equity derivatives business. Where I started my own hedge fund with some fixed income partners, we didn't work, it worked out great. We built a great company, but then our partnership sort of fractured. And by 2008, we had closed down ahead of the financial crisis. And I was starting to launch another fund. And that really never got off the ground, because frankly, when you're trying to raise money in 2008, every allocator, institutional allocator, isn't really interested in giving out money. It just wants all its old money back from all the other hedge funds.

Danny Knowles (3:01)

Couldn't have been a worse time to try and do that.

Andy Constan (3:04)

It was a bad fundraising environment. But I thought about retiring at that point, and then I realized that what had been missing in my career had been an understanding of macro, and I had the great fortune of joining Bridgewater Associates in 2010 Worked for them for a number of years in their research area, in their portfolio construction area, and contributed and had a great time learning macro from, I think, the best macro fund in the world. After that, I decided to go to another macro house that was, instead of entirely systematic, was entirely discretionary. And that was Brevin Howard. Brevin Howard actually became quite active in crypto during that period of time when I was there and still are. And so I got some exposure to the things that we tend to talk about when we're, you and I are together, from those guys at that time. And I was very early on in the whole institutionalization of crypto.

At the time, it was primarily Bitcoin. So after four years, the fund broadly had sort of struggled for a number of years, and the number of traders had fallen down. And I was a resource to those traders as the chief strategist. And Alan said, Hey, I want to spin you off into your own company. I'll be your biggest client. I'll sponsor you. But you should do that. And I said, Sure. You know, it was fit me well during that. And so I started Damp Spring in summer of fall of spring of 2019 And I've been doing that ever since. It's a macro strategy and research firm that primarily services the biggest macro hedge funds in the world and all of the pod shops, as well as some other large institutional investors.