Has Bitcoin (Really) Outshined Gold? ft. Maleeha Bengali

**Raoul Pal** (0:00)
Hi, everyone. I'm Raoul Pal, the CEO and co-founder of Real Vision. Here at Real Vision, we're committed to give you the best knowledge, tools and network to help you succeed in your financial future. If you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to give it a five-star rating. It truly helps us continue to bring top-tier content. Thank you so much.

**Ash Bennington** (0:28)
Welcome back to Real Vision, I'm Ash Bennington. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Maleeha Bengali, founder and CEO of MB Commodities Capital. Maleeha, welcome to Real Vision.

**Maleeha Bengali** (0:38)
Thank you Ash, for having me, it's a pleasure.

**Ash Bennington** (0:41)
It's a pleasure to have you with us. Before we get started here today, don't forget, tickets to our in-person crypto gathering in Miami are now up for sale. Head over to realvision.com/cg2025, that's realvision.com/cg2025 to get yours. Maleeha, a pleasure to have you with us on the show. Let's talk a little bit at the top about your shop and what you do.

**Maleeha Bengali** (1:06)
Thank you, Ash. I'm the founder of MB Commodities Capital. It's a hedge fund of macro relative value cross-acid, hedge fund of commodities and equities. We launched it about four years ago, and we're right now in the process of raising capital in the US as we got our SEC registration. I also run a consulting advisory platform called MB Commodity, one of which people probably know me better for, which we see talks about opportunities and how to look at the commodity landscape in terms of how to trade and rest because it's changed so much over the last few years from just being a physical operation to looking at macro, micro and physical, and that's how we navigate. That's what our fund does. We look at interesting opportunities across a post of assets to really pay that cross-acid discrepancies as we see them develop over time.

**Ash Bennington** (1:49)
Malia, talk a little bit about your outlook, your framework from a macro perspective of how you see markets and how you invest in them.

**Maleeha Bengali** (1:56)
So that's a really good question because very topical for 2025 Taking a big step back, we think the markets have been very accommodative. I think the central bank and policy has been very loose. So one can argue it's probably been a bit too loose given the framework of inflation and where growth has been heading. We have a very big meeting tomorrow, of course, and the Fed expected to cut interest rates. But just taking a step back, it has been quite supportive. We had a couple of scenarios in 2020 with COVID and a lot of bank failures in 2023 But every time we had an obstacle, the Fed has been injecting the market with liquidity. I think that's very important because risk assets in general, especially the ones linked to a fiat currency debasement, have benefited from that liquidity injection. So taking the macro backdrop, but not Trump coming into power, we're talking about pro-business and more deregulation, more stimulative growth. A Fed that's quite accommodative can actually help boost risk assets. But the question really is which risk assets, right? Because we try to look at that sort of liquid framework as to which asset class has the tightest demand supply balances from a commodities point of view, because not all commodities are the same. And I think that's where it gets really tricky, because people often talk about value and commodities that does not really exist. Value is meaningless if you have too much of supply, no matter how cheap it is, it will stay weak. Or in case of point, we can talk about more of that later on. So our job here is once we get a very constructive macro framework, whether it's bearish or bullish, how do we drill down into commodities and how do we drill down to the individual equities related to those commodities to get the best bang for your buck effectively?

**Ash Bennington** (3:27)
As for let's talk a little bit here about you mentioned at the top of the show, fund is cross asset. Talk a little bit about US equities. You mentioned this idea of currency debasement. This is something that we hear increasingly. Unfortunately, these days, talk a little bit about where you see US equities as a benchmark for performances of other asset classes and how you allocate across them.

**Maleeha Bengali** (3:48)
So US equities have been the best asset class right now for the last couple of years and they continue to be so. The big debate is do we want to get involved in Europe or China outside of US? But the question is the growth is coming in the US. We have about 2% to 2.5% GDP growth and a very soft contained inflation policy. Whereas the question in China, we've seen a systemic issue and they have a massive issue with the debt and consumer domestic demand. So one can argue, given the transparency and liquidity, there's still more valuation upside in the US equities, but it's quite expensive. So the question is, where do you actually go and put your money, park your money? Taking a step back in terms of why we are sort of in this pro-fiat currency debasement story, which is a second theme. We have so much, before, like 10 years ago, we would print $1 to get maybe 80 cents of growth. Today, that $1 is getting negative growth. We need to bring so much money to get the same level of growth. And now US debt is, we're trading at post-World War II highs right now. How much more, Stanley, can the Fed do right now? And what levels? Well, $2-3 trillion can be nothing. We could be talking about in the orders of $5 or $10 trillion if there's another financial collapse or crisis. And so the US economy is slowing down, but how do we get that sort of productivity to pick up? And that's the key topic for next year. Is the US able to engineer some sort of growth recovery that offsets the debt? Or will the Fed be chasing to sort of printing more money or lowering rates and stoking inflation? So we're really in a cusp of something very big happening next year. And it's a very delicate dance between this stable growth and low inflation. And I think one of those will be out of the bag. We did the view that inflation is going to come back next year, effectively, along with the central bank be forced to cut rates to save the employment market, the labor market. And I think that could get very tricky. But then from an asset point of view, you can see some great investment opportunities. So I think equities, we talk about this thing called the last decade. They can do well, but the question is, do you want to be something that will give you a better bank for your buck? US equities may not fall as much as other equities, but if you're not investing in, let's say, Bitcoin or gold or silver or something else, those are inflation-protected assets, you might be losing out. And that's the big debate if you have a client as to how to be positioned next year, where do you see asset classes doing well next year based on that backdrop.