Global Macro, Bitcoin Mining vs AI, Mid-Terms Outlook | BMTV Oct. 13, 2026

Grace Remington (0:05)

Good morning, happy Tuesday, and welcome into BMTV. I'm Grace Remington with Sean Hagan. We got another full house today. Here's who's coming up on the show today. CJ Konstantinos, founder of The Peoples Reserve, Troy Cross, senior fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Mike Tridle, founder and CIO of Bluecoin Capital, Nick Hanson, CEO of Luxor Technology, and Natalie Brunell, host of the Coin Stories Podcast. Before we get into it, Sean, how are you doing today?

Sean Hagan (0:34)

I'm doing great today, Grace. Thank you very much. And I'm excited to talk to this full house, as you mentioned, the very full house today.

And especially Natalie Brunell. Good to have her in, friend of the show. It's about time we have her.

Grace Remington (0:48)

Yeah, excited. So let's do as we always do and start with today's headlines. A UK high court judge has ruled that Chinese law will govern fraud victims' claims to 61,000 seized Bitcoin worth about 3.8 billion pounds. The decision limits victims' ability to claim the Bitcoin under English law, potentially allowing the UK Treasury to retain much of the value. Ownership remains undecided with further hearings to examine Chinese law and the victims' lawyers pursuing an appeal. Kraken plans to launch in the UAE in the coming weeks after its parent company, Payward, received full market approval from Dubai's Virtual Asset Regulator. The approval allows regulated operations in Dubai with UAE clients expected to get spot and margin Bitcoin and crypto trading plus deposits and withdrawals directly in local currency.

Russia's Central Bank has approved Spurbank to exchange Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with its first products plan for December 1st. The bank has also has approval to record clients crypto holdings, allowing it to bring these services into interfaces customers already use. The move follows a new Russian law that allows crypto trading through regulated financial firms. Democratic wins in either chamber of Congress could mean more investigations into Wall Street crypto firms and prediction markets. Democrats would gain subpoena power and could call company CEOs and regulators to testify, with probes into the Trump family's industry ties already being prepared. That's according to Reuters. Banking regulators are stepping up scrutiny of AI over concerns that cyber attacks or out-of-control systems could disrupt financial markets. US watchdogs, including the Federal Reserve, are asking banks how they control AI systems that can act on their own. European supervisors are pressing banks to strengthen plans to recover from disruptions.

And Strive CEO Matt Cole announced the company bought 3,311 Bitcoin last week, bringing total holdings to almost 33,000. Warrant exercises brought in $208 million of Bitcoin, with about 15.3 million warrants still outstanding, and set to expire today at 5 o'clock Eastern time.

And with that, let's take a look at how the markets are trading this morning. Bitcoin is up about a half a percentage point at about $83,200 on Wall Street. The SBY is flat this morning, trading at $778.07. QQQ down about a half a percentage point, facing more pressure as chip stocks sell off with fresh concerns about competition from China. Turning to the Treasuries, they are back open today after yesterday's holiday, and yields are moving lower, with the 10-year back around 5.2%. That's down four basis points.

We'll be watching how that plays out across the three-month and five-year as well. The 30-year yield down five basis points this morning to 5.56%. And gold catching a little bit of a bid here, up about just over four-tenths of a percentage point, trading over $4,100 per ounce. And oil falling today down about 1.4% WTI, that is, trading at 90.59%. Sean, what are you looking at this morning?

Sean Hagan (4:16)

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the chips. And I'm looking at the Cosby. It's 30% down off of its highs earlier this summer. It's had a pretty rough go past two market sessions. And it has been joined by some US chip makers too. Micron fell about 2.3% Monday. SanDisk dropped about 11%.

And pre-market, they're each down roughly 4.5%.

So Nasdaq Composites still looking good. They're a much smaller concentration. Even though we talk about how top heavy they are, the Cosby is way more top heavy. Basically, two or three companies really running the show over in that market. So like you said, CXMT in China has a denser chip design that might be causing a lot of this sort of reactionary movement. Some analysts are saying that it's rebalancing of ETFs, maybe doubts about the continuation of this chip trade, or even the payment of buybacks or dividends, things like that, more structural. So keeping our eyes on it to see if it truly is just a repositioning, or if there's some strategic concerns with the trade itself, or with competition for denser chip design.