June 2025 – Smart Money Asia

Nothing ever happens

You may have noticed a theme in my last two posts: markets have no top, because fiat has no bottom. If fiat money is programmed for debasement, then assets priced in fiat are equally programmed to increase in value over time.

We just got another example this weekend. When America struck at Iranian nuclear sites, the stock market was closed. However, crypto trades 24/7. Sure enough, Bitcoin dumped from $103k to $99k as everyone geared up for full-scale war. Then, this morning, after Iran’s token retaliation and the announcement of a ceasefire, it popped back above $105k.

Gotta be quick to buy those dips!

I have learned through experience that trying to trade geopolitical events is a waste of time. Unless you work at the Pentagon, you have zero edge. By the time you are positioned for a particular outcome, the situation has already shifted or resolved, and the move is done.

Case in point:

These events usually have far less of an impact on markets than people expect.

Or, as the kids like to say these days: Nothing ever happens.

That chart is a little hard to see, I know, but you probably get the picture. All these ‘big events’, and the stock market just goes up and to the right. FYI, it came from a 2016 blog post called A history of share prices by Kieron Nutbrown, former head of global macro fixed income at First State Investments in London.

Investing can pretty much be summed up as a long-term bet on the nothing ever happens narrative. The only gauge you need to watch is global liquidity. When that rises, asset prices go with it, and it’s going up forever, Laura.

In other news

Obviously, you can’t take the ‘nothing ever happens’ narrative too literally. Lots of things happen, but mostly they don’t have much influence on the big picture.

Japan is perhaps the most ‘nothing ever happens’ country in the world! Considering the absolute mess Western governments are in, it’s neat how Japan just keeps chugging along. Nobody expects leadership to get better, and people have pretty much accepted that electing the ‘other guys’ will just mean more of the same, but with less predictability.

However, things do change! On 25 June, the Financial Services Agency meet to discuss the possible reclassification of digital assets. (article here) If this goes ahead, it could mean that crypto will be taxed like stocks and could also pave the way for Japan-based crypto ETFs.

When I posted this article on X, I was met with comments about how this discussion has been ongoing for years, nothing ever changes, blah blah. But, I actually think it may happen this time. The FSA is well aware that the current classification doesn’t make a lot of sense, and the election of Trump and his positive stance towards digital assets appear to have motivated the powers that be to get with the program.

Time will tell, but my bet is that this goes ahead and is implemented from 2026.

If I’m right, this will probably be the pin that pops the Metaplanet bubble. The whole reason for buying a Bitcoin proxy was to avoid BTC gains being taxed as income. Take that away and demand for the stock should fall, although maybe not until next year, when it is actually implemented.

Until such a time, the Bitcoin/crypto proxy companies will likely continue to trade feverishly. A few weeks back, Beat Holdings (9399), a company formerly known as Xinhau Finance, jumped on the bandwagon and announced a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Bizarrely, they are buying the BlackRock IBIT ETF rather than Bitcoin itself. Not so bizarrely, they updated their website to look just like Metaplanet’s! The stock went vertical shortly after the announcement and is now bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Expect more of these before the year is out.

Something sensible

I am mostly out of Metaplanet and have just kept a relatively small holding in case Q3 gets as crazy as I think it might. So I now have some dry powder to allocate over the summer. Needless to say, this money will be going somewhere more sensible. With the USD/JPY still trading at ¥145, I will keep most of this in yen for the time being.

I came across this list of Noteworthy DX stocks from METI. These are companies identified by METI as being at the forefront of digital transformation. I already bought a couple of names from here and will perhaps add to them over time if they work out.

I also started a position in Renesas Electronics (6723) after reading this article. There were some interesting comments in there.

Luckily, Renesas doesn’t seem to have suffered any damage from its US partner Wolfspeed announcing that it is going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy…

Nothing ever happens, right?

Top image from Freepik

Disclaimer: This should go without saying, but the information contained in this blog is not investment advice, or an incentive to invest, and should not be considered as such. This is for information only.

Dry powder

Greetings, fellow bulls!

BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF recently hit $70 billion in assets under management. Do you know how long it took to get there? 341 days. That’s 5 times faster than it took their gold ETF (GLD) to reach that milestone. Bitcoin moves at a different speed.

Remember when the Bitcoin ETF launch was supposed to be a sell-the-news event? The midcurvers did it again.

On 6 June, Metaplanet announced an accelerated 2025-2027 Bitcoin acquisition plan, targeting 210,000 BTC by 2027. The company started this new phase with a 555 million share issue, with expected proceeds of $55.4 billion, to buy more Bitcoin. You can find the whole plan outlined here. You have to hand it to these guys for having mega conviction. Go, go, go!

If the ETFs were the catalyst for the 2024/25 bull market, Bitcoin treasury companies have been the other major force driving ongoing demand. Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly Microstrategy) hoovered up another 1,045 BTC on 9 June and now holds 582,000 Bitcoin acquired at an average price of just over $70k. Strategy has a nice overview of the company metrics here.

All this makes you wonder how the BTC price isn’t higher…

Not that $108k BTC is cheap, but institutional demand for the orange coin is surging, with copycat treasury companies springing up almost daily.

So why isn’t BTC at $150k? Probably the number one reason is that retail fever has yet to show up in this cycle. Maybe people got too badly burned by FOMO in previous bull markets. Or maybe Bitcoin at $100k+ just feels too expensive.

There’s also a lot of selling going on. OG whales, who accumulated coins at far lower prices, are cashing out. It turns out that $100k really is a magic number in that respect.

At some point, those guys will be satisfied and look to hold the rest of their stack for even higher prices. It feels like we might be getting close. Whether retail shows up or not remains to be seen. Part of me hopes they don’t – this is the herd that buys at the highs and ends up getting burned. Part of me is resigned to the fact that there is always a level of buzz where they can’t resist jumping in. It is what it is.

Where do we go from here?

If you managed to ignore the haters and the naysayers and accumulate the best-performing asset in the world and then sit on it this cycle, congratulations. That’s no mean feat!

Now don’t screw it up!

What do you think this is going to look like in another 4 years? How about 8 years? Hey, maybe governments will rein in their rampant spending and start behaving responsibly. Perhaps they’ll pay down some of that debt instead of creating more.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you check my previous post: It’s going up forever, Laura.

I’ve been writing about this stuff since 2017, imploring people to educate themselves on Bitcoin. I’m still shocked how few people have made the effort.

“I only invest in things I understand.”

Oh really? Explain to me how that bond fund you own works. What’s the sector breakdown in that stock index ETF you’ve got there?

Hey, if you’ve actually spent the time on Bitcoin and decided it’s not for you, that’s cool.

Or maybe your hobby is hunting Japanese deep value stocks, and you’re not interested in doing anything else – this one I can respect. If you’re happy and you don’t care, it’s all good.

But most people are just a combination of lazy and slaves to their own biases.

If this is you, you have until about the end of 2026 to change it or get left behind.

Times are changing

This summary thread on GMI’s ‘Everything Code” is worth 5 minutes of your time. That’s the reading time. It might take a little longer to digest.

The Tldr: Human productivity is heading down, to be replaced by robots and AI. More debt is coming. Debt to GDP is going up only. Spending power gets vaporised. Tech stocks and Bitcoin are the two things that can still outperform the debasement, and one is way more efficient than the other.

Things are going to get weird and very difficult for a while. It’s not a good scenario to sleepwalk into.

Death and taxes

“But, what about the tax on crypto?” This concern is understandable. Japan’s taxation on crypto is indeed heinous. Personally, I think it will change and be taxed like stocks sooner or later. But I might be wrong.

What is occurring is the financialization of Bitcoin. It’s crossed over to tradfi already. Don’t miss this. Pretty soon, you won’t have to sell your Bitcoin. You’ll be able to borrow against it.

No capital gains if you don’t sell. It’s how the rich spend their money.

It’s already here with various institutions, including Xapo Bank – I wrote about it in Banking your Bitcoin. This stuff is only going to get easier and more accessible. Just sit tight a little while.

What’s the game plan?

Bitcoin still has room to run this year, but next year is likely to be brutal. It will be ok to laugh at it again. You will feel smart for not owning it.

Metaplanet and other copycat BTC treasury companies might even turn out to be the FTX/Luna of this cycle. One or more of them could blow up spectacularly. This is not the time for FOMO. If you missed it, you missed it. Metaplanet is currently trading at a massive premium to its Bitcoin holdings. In the bear market, I would expect it to trade at a big discount.

However it works out, my thanks go out to this company for providing me with a larger-than-anticipated pile of dry powder to allocate this summer.

If you still have zero bitcoin exposure, 2026 is your best opportunity. You have until then to get your head around it and set aside some cash. Put the work in. Jameson Lopp has an excellent list of reputable Bitcoin news sites and newsletters here.

I talked to a young guy the other day, and every time I said Bitcoin, he came back with ‘crypto’. If you think these two are the same thing, you have some catching up to do. I cover this in The investment case for Bitcoin.

This cycle has been a real eye-opener in this respect. Every time Bitcoin pulls back 5%, crypto (meaning alts) gets destroyed. The bleed has been insane. You will go broke very quickly trying to outperform BTC – and why do you need to anyway?

The name of the game is to accumulate as much Bitcoin as you can, without putting yourself in the position where you could become a forced seller. You don’t have to go crazy, just average in when nobody wants it. ETFs are fine – you don’t have to go crypto native.

If you want to get excited about crypto, stablecoins are where it’s at. USDC founder Circle Internet Group’s (CRCL) IPO just blew away expectations. This could be the start of a gold rush in crypto IPOs. (I would be keeping an eye on Tether here) Societe Generale just announced that it will launch a USD-pegged stablecoin on Ethereum and Solana. I don’t think the average person on the street has any idea how easy it is to transact in stablecoins. Money is going to start moving so much faster.

The 2024/25 bull cycle may well accelerate from here. Things could get crazy. Maybe we’ll even get the alt season traders have been waiting for. Do what you have to to accumulate more BTC, and don’t be scared to set aside some dry powder for next year.

Good luck!

It’s going up forever, Laura

What if the market just goes up forever?

I am starting to see people discussing the idea that the stock market has been so pumped up on debt steroids that it simply won’t be allowed to go down for an extended period again. Normally, this kind of talk would be a massive flashing sell signal, but it’s not an idea that is being broadly discussed. It’s just popping up in pockets here and there.

Of course, stock markets go up and down. In fact, the mighty US market took a hit in April due to the Liberation Day tariff malarkey. But did you notice how quickly it bounced back? Pretty much a V-shaped recovery. Same in March 2020.

I’ve said it before: the money has been funny since the 2008 global financial crisis. Many institutions that should have gone under were propped up at the expense of taxpayers and we’ve been getting screwed ever since. Economies and big business have become addicted to liquidity.

Sounds like tin foil hat stuff?

That’s the MSCI World Index. See what happens after the 2008 crash?

Here’s the gold chart for comparison.

So, are the assets going up, or is the unit of account going down? Check out the purchasing power of a dollar over time.

Ding ding ding ding ding! So, 2008 clearly wasn’t the start of the pattern. It just intensified after that.

The Federal Reserve of St. Louis puts together some pretty charts, doesn’t it?

Take a look at this one – currency in circulation:

Hello! So, if you keep creating more dollars, the purchasing power of a dollar goes down, and the value of assets and other stuff goes up against your inflated currency. I’m picking on USD here, but everywhere else looks the same. Probably worse.

Here’s a question I get asked a lot: “How do I convince my very conservative partner that we need to invest more?”

Answer: Just teach them that the market is going up forever!

If assets are going up forever, you’d better own some! You probably don’t need to fret too much about timing the market. Just make sure you keep a nice cash reserve so you don’t have to dip into your investments in a crisis, and yolo the rest into stocks, commodities, real estate, bitcoin and anything else that isn’t cash in the bank.

Of course, this is all somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But is it really much more complicated than that?

Please don’t misunderstand. Stocks can still go down 30-50% at any time. Bitcoin can still dump 50-80% and probably will next year. You should be prepared for these outcomes and never let yourself become a forced seller. But, over the long term, these assets go up and to the right because the denominator is cooked. Did you notice how long the whole DOGE ‘let’s reduce wasteful government spending’ drive lasted? It’s not even June, and Elon and Trump are melting down in public.

If you’re wondering why you have to become a money manager just to break even with inflation, here you go: