Anthony Pompliano on Bitcoin's Rally, Measuring AI Success & U.S. Debt Crisis

Sam Vadas (0:08)

Welcome to Market Over Time, I'm Sam Vadas. Anthony Pompliano has built his career across investing, Bitcoin, entrepreneurship and financial media.

The founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management joins us to discuss the macro environment, the next stage of crypto adoption, how technology is changing the way people invest. Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today.

Anthony Pompliano (0:33)

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Sam Vadas (0:35)

Look, I have to start with the story of the moment, and that is obviously the global bond sell-off that we're seeing. I mean, we're seeing rising yields from Asia to Europe, levels we haven't seen since the 1990s. As for the drivers of all of this free pricing, I mean, obviously it's a confluence of factors. You've got oil, you've got inflation expectations, you've got rising concerns about corporate bond issuance and this fiscal spending. Is there any factor that you see is the biggest risk right now?

Anthony Pompliano (1:06)

I think there's just one big theme, right? It's distortion of financial markets or free markets. And Stanley Jockenmiller did a great job of calling this out in his recent op-ed where he said, you got to let the bond market speak. It is a signal and it is telling you that something is breaking or is broken. And as you see these bond yields continue to rise, ultimately it puts pressure on people in Washington, DC or governments around the world. Are you going to continue to print money and distort the market and destroy the purchasing power of these currencies? Or are you going to do the hard, difficult thing and go to people and say, we are not going to do that anymore. And if we've made promises in the past, we're going to have to address them. If we're going to continue to make promises in the future, we're either going to have to do it with a balanced budget or we're not going to be able to fulfill those promises either. And I think it's just very hard for politicians to do that. And so my guess is, although that is the thing for them to do, the politicians won't do it. They'll keep printing money. Asset prices will keep growing and bond yields will keep sounding the alarm.

Sam Vadas (2:01)

Yeah, I mean, he's not the only person that says, let the market do their job. But it's interesting that you raised that piece. And I've got to ask you of all people, Anthony, I mean, just as a sidebar, what did you make of the fact that he admitted he wrote that with AI?

Anthony Pompliano (2:16)

I don't think that really matters at all. I mean, half of the op-eds that are written every single day are written by somebody other than whoever is on the byline, right?

And so I don't really put that much weight on that. I think the more interesting thing was at the time I called out, I would put a very high probability on the fact that Stanley Druckenmiller did not publish that piece without talking to Scott Besson. And it wouldn't surprise me if Scott Besson told him to publish it, because it makes Scott Besson's job easier inside the administration when he can point to someone external who is well-respected, who's got great financial returns and says, well, my buddy Stanley Druckenmiller is saying, you guys are spending too much money. Stop spending so much damn money. And so I think that that's probably much more likely is that they were kind of in cahoots with each other rather than Druck is trying to trick everyone with AI.

Sam Vadas (3:02)

Interesting. Look, some economists would argue that yields are elevated for the right reason. And that is, of course, because of the resilience of the strength of the economy. I mean, I spoke to Joe Labogna a couple of weeks back. You know, I know that Ed Yardeni has been also saying this. And it'll be time to worry when the 10 year rises rapidly in a short amount of time, but also when we start to reach levels of nominal GDP, which is at what, 6.6% right now. I mean, when would it be time for you to have some concern, do you think?

Anthony Pompliano (3:37)

I've been concerned for a decade. I don't need any of these metrics.

It's been pretty obvious to me that they're going to keep printing money. I think that's why I've been so loudly talking about Bitcoin or hard assets. And look, if you go and you look at a portfolio of, let's say, the S&P 500 versus hard assets, let's say Bitcoin Gold and Land as an example, a portfolio of Bitcoin Gold and Land is up something like 150 to 175% over the last five years, the S&P is up about 70%.