Bitcoin Faces Its BIGGEST Test Yet As Oil Nears $100 And CPI Looms

Scott Melker (0:01)

Bitcoin faces its biggest test yet, as oil nears 100 American dollars per barrel. And CPI is looming. We're getting August CPI inflation data on Friday, and August PPI inflation data on Thursday, because we all deeply care about CPI, PPI and the price of oil. We're gonna talk about that, and a lot more today with Tillman, who decided to show up today with Andrew and of course, with our friend from Bloomberg, one James Seifert. It's gonna be a great show. Let's go.

What is up, everybody? Happy day after Labor Day to those who celebrate. I still don't know what Labor Day is, and neither do you, but we were not here because we were not allowed to labor. So there was no Macro Monday, which meant that you did not get to hear Mike McGlone tell you that your favorite investments are going to zero. But what you can hear is Tillman, Andrew and James tell you that your investments are going to zero. Welcome, gentlemen. I would just like to say that if Mike is listening, James gets a raise, and Eric Balchunas does not because he showed up 37 minutes late last week. Andrew and I had to just talk amongst ourselves.

Ran Neuner (1:27)

Y'all did a good job. I was doing family stuff, taking my son, getting him set up. I apologize for not being here. But I think my attendance record this year is even better than yours, Scott, honestly. You've been in Bermuda like six times, haven't you?

Scott Melker (1:42)

I've never been here in my life. Never been there once.

So they've got that triangle thing, I don't know. Okay, so let's start here. This title is not hyperbolic. I'd like you guys to know that because Bitcoin has clearly never faced a bigger test than oil, they're a hundred and looming CPI. But what I will say is that we do have some data coming this week, that my screen is not even shared. Look at how ready for this show I am. You guys like that screen?

Mario Nawfal (2:11)

Looks good. By the way, not to ruin the show, but it is appropriate that we have the ETF guys back to back because that's pretty much all that matters with Bitcoin anymore.

Nothing else matters. Okay, well, only inflows and outflows matter. That is what I'll take the other side of that statement. Thank you. I'll see everybody later.

Scott Melker (2:33)

James, take the other side of that statement.

James Seifert (2:35)

They're just a piece of the pie. I mean, honestly, they reflect what's going on in the broader market more than anything.

There was a time where you got an ETF on underlying asset and that actually moved the market. Like people thought it was going to come to the market and more demand, what not, yada, yada, yada. I mean, there's some argument true to that. But for the most part, it's just reflecting what's going on in the market. We had some puking in June when the whole market was puking, which was the first time the ETFs really puked up some Bitcoin. It's really just a reflection of what's going on. And some underlying heartbeat of demand, I think, is true from advisors. But yeah.

Scott Melker (3:09)

Okay. So we had Bitcoin obviously made this massive move up a couple weeks ago, 22%-ish on the week. And we know that that was sort of treasury and then short squeeze. But then we've seen pretty steady, minus a day or two, demand coming from ETF. So I guess you could make a compelling narrative that the short squeeze was kind of the technical move, but at least that demand has maintained price at this higher level, and that we've seen the flows. I mean, we've seen some massive days here, right? I mean, you take a look at the data and try to bring it up. But I mean, we've had some big days of late. One of the biggest days since the second biggest day of the year is something we just had, didn't we? I'm very good at knowing what happened.

James Seifert (3:52)

Yeah, no, you are. I mean, things are looking good right now for the Bitcoin ETS. But I mean, you got like we're still below the all time cumulative inflows that we've peaked at in October of last year. There was like a bout of inflows. We happened in late spring into early May.

And then we, you know, July, June, late May was a nightmare. And right now we're back at like all time. You know, things are humming along basically since August 17th. Ironically, it started coming in right after the cold part hack. So I think money started pouring in because some of that was like people are like, all right, I need to get my money off these cold cards. Where do I put it? And I'm sure some of them put in an exchange. Some people bought the Bitcoin ETFs because they're like, this is the way I'm just going to get exposure from now on. And it's kind of continued for the most part. And we've seen some serious inflows into the ETFs.