#1485 Anthony & Polina Pompliano | Buy Bitcoin, Eliminate Pennies, & Add Tariffs!

— Bitcoin dropped below $100,000 to $97,000, driven by sensitivity to global liquidity, macro environment shifts, and market uncertainty about Trump administration policies, particularly on tariffs.

— Gold and Bitcoin have decoupled recently; gold continues hitting all-time highs (driven by Asian demand) while Bitcoin trades sideways, indicating Bitcoin is being treated as a risk-on asset by Wall Street rather than a non-correlated store of value.

— MicroStrategy (rebranded as JustStrategy) continues aggressive Bitcoin accumulation with a $742.4 million purchase; the company's value hinges on Bitcoin holdings and the premium assigned to those holdings, not on brand changes.

— Trump ordered the Treasury to stop minting new pennies, which cost 3 cents to produce but are worth 1 cent; eliminating penny production could save $500 million annually and redirect copper and zinc to higher-value uses, requiring political courage to execute.

— Trump announced 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, framed as reciprocal tariffs to level an unequal playing field where other countries charge the US far higher duties; tariffs historically increase domestic production capacity utilization and create jobs without significantly raising consumer prices in the long term.

— Elon Musk offered $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI and convert it to serve its original nonprofit charitable mission, while Sam Altman rejected the offer; the bid sets a high valuation floor the nonprofit must acknowledge when spinning out to for-profit status.

— Bitcoin price: $97,000 at time of recording, down from ~$110,000 peak; started 2024 at $40,000.

— Gold continues hitting all-time highs, but correlation with Bitcoin has weakened; gold gains driven primarily by Asian investor demand, not Western demand.

— U.S. fiscal deficit now running at approximately $2.5 trillion annualized (up from previous $2 trillion estimates) based on first four months of fiscal 2025; adds $1 trillion to national debt every ~100 days.

— MicroStrategy stock premium over Bitcoin holdings remains healthy despite brand rebranding; company expected to accumulate 500,000+ Bitcoin if current acquisition pace continues.

— Monitor Bitcoin's correlation with equities; if it remains risk-on correlated rather than non-correlated asymmetric, its hedging value diminishes—watch for institutional flows and macro risk sentiment.

— Tariff policy will likely boost U.S. steel and manufacturing production within 12 months; domestic capacity was historically underutilized (60% pre-2018), so tariffs unlock existing supply rather than requiring massive capex, making the policy defensible economically regardless of short-term political noise.

— Track OpenAI's valuation settlement; the $97.4 billion bid establishes a hard floor for what the nonprofit must acknowledge when converting to for-profit structure, affecting how much value returns to the nonprofit versus insiders.