Nik Bhatia

GOOD MORNING

BITCOIN STILL HAS UNTHINKABLE ASYMMETRY, BUT IF YOU DON'T THINK IN TRILLIONS, YOU MIGHT NOT SEE IT

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

GM and PV

Three weeks until my Bitcoin summer camp begins at USC. Which is the one wallet you’d recommend for self custody on chain and lightning payments? Must be LN capable, must be easy to use for newbies!

What an honor to visit the White House, Treasury, and Commerce this week.

Can't believe I get to help push the idea of LIBOR-to-SOFR 2.0.

Reach for the stars!

Glad you are loving it!

We have worked really hard to bring people a helpful bitcoin and macro quant to their fingertips.

Claude kills again!

GM & PV

We bought a CO2 monitor. Windows getting opened at all hours. Wife asks “is this your new obsession?” to which I responded “yup”

count your blessings!

With gold practically $5,000 and silver at $100, the sentiment in bitcoin is so poor due to being left out of the metals rally that it almost feels like post-FTX $17,000 bear vibes

I am bullish but the painful type where fear dominates and you have to push through it

GM and PV good people

Sending love peace and blessings

One has to wonder if Trump and Bessent are actively trying to box out the Supreme Court from ruling against tariffs by demonstrating that the core of the issue is the multi-decade US-China Cold War rather than an isolated economic move or loophole around the legislative branch

PURA VIDA

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

GM & PV

The less time on Twitter the more free I feel. And my wife said she’s proud of me for not chasing the algo.

Count your blessings!

Government spending, unfortunately, is in the driver’s seat for the foreseeable future.

GM and PV

Wonderful day as always to count your blessings

I have now logged out of Twitter on my trading station (phone was last year). Only laptop remains and I have been checking it much less. I had convinced myself in the past I needed Twitter because that’s where news happens, but at what cost to inner peace?

Monday Blessings to you all, PV

“The dollar” is a derivative of things that have value and are commonly denominated in dollars, such as assets. The dollar is itself fleeting, as is all currency today. Currency is not an asset.

It used to be linked to an asset, gold, which is a mind trick used on the populace.

Bitcoin is an asset.

Bitcoin has only had ~450 difficulty adjustments. Very early, very young network. Few understand this.

GM, PV

I miss pre-Saylor bitcoin, but here we are!

GM, PV

GM, PV

YOU ARE MEANT FOR MORE

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

How I feel these days

Letter from a student. Rewards of leaving a life on the trading desk to research and teach. It doesn't get better than this. Makes me realize how much I am blessed. Showing my wife these is an equally special moment because of proof-of-work.

"Good morning/evening Professor Nik,

I just wanted to take some time to thank you for everything I learned in your Bitcoin program.

Honestly, when I first read "AI and Finance," I thought you were going to teach quantitative finance with AI as some new algorithm. I applied because it was literally the only class that interested me, and I'm pretty sure I put it as all three of my choices on the application.

When I found out later that it was mainly about finance fundamentals, I thought I was going to have a horrible time. Boy, was I wrong—I accidentally discovered that besides computer science, finance might actually be my thing.

I didn't realize how important the stuff we covered (especially credit creation and layered money) was until I started my recent internship at . The foundation you built for understanding markets—especially that class where you talked about credit creation and what happens to stocks and treasuries when more loans get taken out—has been incredibly helpful.

The knowledge from your class has actually let me start conversations about crypto and stablecoins with some of my colleagues who've been in high finance for over two decades. I've been able to explain where Bitcoin gets its value and what stablecoins actually are. When they asked questions like what Bitcoin's market cap really means, I could talk about UTXOs and explain concepts like Bitcoin's realized value.

This class really inspired me and honestly might even change the career path I end up taking. But above everything else, being able to actually transact Bitcoin in class was lowkey cool (not gonna lie, best thing ever)—it felt so much different than just reading the tech docs for the protocol.

Thanks again for such an eye-opening semester!"

No Twitter on my phone for about a year now. Life much better. More attention on my family when I’m with them. Scrolling was causing neck pain on the side I hold my phone. Inner peace is the way. I still tweet from the desk and wish my business model didn’t depend on social media promo so much, but alas.

GM, count your blessings!

GOOD MORNING

BOOK SIGNING

NYC AUGUST 5TH

BOOK SIGNING

SF AUGUST 14TH

SEE YOU THERE!

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!

Fiat makes it difficult to discern whether gains are from dilution or productivity

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the conference. Usually not a fan of such enormous crowds, but this experience was defined by high quality people, from individuals, to couples, to professionals. Incredible to meet some of you in person. Beyond blessed!

Money don’t make you solid, it just makes you 10 times more of the person you are before you got it

I had so much fun writing this book. So far, it’s in about 2,500 hands. Honored to have such amazing readers around the world. nevent1qqsd4pda7tjsd3jq6gtms20sccwk6d0rwxevw60zgfy7mqftp0z0elcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgx6fac7

Extremely high signal episode with Dines on dollar recycling in China being replaced by gold purchases. Also, how the Eurodollar system is impacted by tariffs. nevent1qqs0pxy9q46xc3hc3nspkurk2gxnkz09usypmfjylwf5wkr0k2pqxsspzemhxue69uhky6t5vdhkjmn9wgh8xmmrd9skcrwmpfm

Bitcoin Age audiobook is now available. I hope you guys will take a listen!

I’m here all week!

good evening

count your blessings

I am officially on 1-hour candles across all charts on the desk tonight

nice to be back on nostr!

Satoshi broke economics with digital scarcity. No supply response destroys every model.

good morning

count your blessings!

I have the great honor and privilege to begin my 5th year as an adjunct professor @ USC Marshall tomorrow.

I’ll be teaching bitcoin this semester to grad students as it approaches its 15th birthday and 4th halving.

Blessed!

Jobless claims are creeping up. Highest in almost two years. Lagged effects of tightening hitting labor market NOW.

This year’s Bilderberg topics, banking system top of mind 👀

A.I. Banking system China Energy transition  Europe Fiscal challenges India  Industrial policy and trade NATO Russia Transnational threats Ukraine  U.S. leadership

covered by CNBC now 🤷🏽‍♂️👇🏽

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/18/bilderberg-openai-microsoft-google-join-ai-talks-at-secretive-meeting.html

While many obsess over the debt ceiling fight, markets ponder what an agreement will bring in terms of liquidity drain, as the Treasury refills its general account at the Fed. Money used to buy T-bills means money not hitting the system elsewhere (until govt spends it). We wait.

The reason I started a substack in the first place, September 2021, was that I was generally sick of relying on twitter to reach readers

Here’s our latest update, all weekly updates are free to everybody! https://thebitcoinlayer.substack.com/p/objects-in-the-mirror-are-closer

Bitcoin adoption happens one use case at a time. It seems that, unbelievably, many are learning about fractional reserve banking for the first time today.

Enter: bitcoin.

Lightning Network is the captain now

bitcoin is optimism for our species, and I’m just thankful to be a part of it