WEEKLY - What matters? Why this?
plus: reflections, resolutions, sparkle and more
Hi everyone, and HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all!
I hope you all had some chance to recharge over the festive season… because the news about Venezuela out this morning suggests that we’re going to need a considerable amount of stamina just to keep abreast of the changes ahead.
This is a short email as publishing is still choppy until the 7th of January, when I tearfully say goodbye to visiting family and household festivities, at least for a few weeks. I know that celebration is a state of mind that does not depend on dates, but there’s something about the Christmas sparkle and tradition, especially here in Spain, that makes the season so special. Then again, I’m pretty sure the year will yet again fly by and it will be Christmas again before we know it.
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My latest op-ed on American Banker shares how I think stablecoins will shape banking over the coming year (paywall, sorry!) – “Stablecoins will be a key element of banking infrastructure in 2026”
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In this newsletter:
What matters?
Assorted links: New Year’s resolutions, swear words, reflections and more
Weekend: seasonal sparkle
If you’re not a subscriber to the premium dailies, I hope you’ll consider becoming one? You’ll get access to market commentary as well as adoption insight and industry trends. Plus, links and music recommendations ‘cos why not…
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If you speak Spanish and are interested in a less frequent, shorter update on developments in the crypto-macro intersection, you can subscribe to Cripto es Macro here.
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Some of the topics discussed in this week’s premium dailies:
Worthwhile pieces for your reading list
Markets: what BTC volatility has to do with silver
What matters?
Macro catch-up: US GDP
Predictions: a temporal twist
2026 Predictions
The 2025 scorecard
What matters?
The pause between Christmas and New Year is an ideal breathing space in which to refresh commitments, dust off goals and check that you’re wearing the right shoes for the path ahead.
So, in that spirit, I sat down this weekend in the pre-dawn quiet and asked myself why I do what I do.
It turns out it’s a much harder question than it seems. The easy answer, the one I’ve been telling myself repeatedly since I started this project more than three years ago, is because “it matters”. But what matters? And why?
Many of you have probably gone through this introspective exercise at some point, perhaps as part of a regular psyche cleanse – what do you care about, and how can you contribute? Of course, everyone will have different answers, which is what makes the world work.
Here’s mine: Change matters, because it affects people.
But, while true, that feels inadequate because it’s vague – after all, the world is always changing, and people have always been buffeted by some external force.
So, a more specific, relevant and wordy version: The world is currently undergoing a systemic change to its economic motor; blockchain technology is both a driver of this change and a solution to the resulting dislocation. I want to help people understand what’s happening. Like I said at the beginning, it matters.
And I believe I can contribute there: I’m a markets nerd, applied maths and econ degree, CFA (non-practicing), I worked in tradfi for 10 years, and founded an ecommerce company during the dot-com bust. I grew up across several continents, am comfortable with change and have an annoying drive to understand the “why” of things. I’ve been researching and writing about the crypto industry now for longer than I was in traditional finance, but I can still bridge the two worlds, and I believe in the democratizing power of decentralization as well as in the necessary (but currently over-extended) role of institutions. I love writing, I’m good at pattern recognition, and I want to share what I learn.
That’s why I do what I do: because it allows me to combine what I can do with what I want to do, while hopefully helping others to form new questions and change their minds.
Why this?
But let’s back up and look more closely at why I believe the impact of crypto on the macro landscape, and vice versa, is so important now – why this is what I feel I have to focus on. I won’t lie, there have been days of disillusionment with the “ick” factor that has always been part of the crypto ecosystem and that this past year became more institutional. On those days, I fantasize about pivoting to the space economy, or rare earth extraction. Both are fascinating, ideal for a nerd like me and relevant for what’s ahead. But neither have crypto’s vast potential scope of big-picture impact, which I’d eventually find frustrating. (And no, you will never see me slither over to the shiny field of AI punditry – it doesn’t have anything like the grittiness and hope of crypto’s early days.)
I focus on crypto and macro because we’re not just talking about change here. I believe what we’re going through is the most profound re-alignment of politics and economics since WWII.
Going off the gold standard impacted finance as well as global trade, but the “average” person wasn’t much affected. The spread of the internet was creative, productive, and equalizing just as it facilitated global surveillance – it was a leap in collective intelligence – but it didn’t have as transformative an impact on the relationship between people and their governments as what’s coming.
On the one hand, we now have a technology that can support individual resilience.
Blockchain technology can facilitate totally decentralized transactions that don’t need institutional approval and that can’t be blocked, sanctioned, censored or otherwise stopped. This restores agency and independence to activists and others on the wrong side of “acceptable” thought by enabling off-grid transfers that sidestep institutional repression.
On the other hand, we have the inexorable expansion of institutional power.
Just like biological organisms, political institutions have to grow to survive. Invading neighbours is frowned upon, so growth is focused downward, into deeper participation in citizens’ lives. Governments can’t keep us safe from new threats without more surveillance, and they can’t stay in power without greater relevance. Both imply more control over what we do.
What’s more, regulators have to keep regulating which means slapping more restrictions on more aspects of human activity. No head of an official department ever turned down the opportunity for a higher budget.
In sum, governments will keep on growing until they come up against a force that stops them. Regrettably, this affects all of us as technology drags the historical struggle between will and might from the battlefield into our homes.
Today, the clash between the human instinct for agency and the institutional instinct for control is breaking the boundaries of politics and muscling its way into economics, education, employment, even culture. We’re already seeing it play out in violent protests around the world, in more censorship and in the entrenched insistence from those in power that they need more of it in order to protect us.
Put differently, those in power will fight to hold on while people push back against increasing suffocation – the story of revolutions throughout history. This one is spreading everywhere as greater connectivity delivers a more powerful lever for censorship of speech and economic activity. But, finally, there’s a new tool in the box: a digital way around that.
Meanwhile, we have new markets emerging with fewer gates, and institutions recognizing that greater efficiency is a net benefit. The creation of wealth is an unalloyed positive if it can be distributed according to contribution and risk acceptance. More agile marketplaces can feed that creation, with more pronounced impact in overlooked corners of the world’s economy. Put differently, blockchain can help financial institutions operate more efficiently, and spin up new marketplaces that can put savings to work for more granular, community-focused opportunities.
So, to summarize this rambling:
I care about change because of how it affects people, both the opportunity and the threat – and I care about blockchain technology’s role in reform and resistance.
That is what this newsletter hopes to convey: why blockchain and other crypto technologies matter. Not because of the money to be made (you won’t ever see me make trading suggestions or investment recommendations) – I’ve nothing at all against making money, but I care so much more about the bigger picture, the longer-term impact, the promise and the peril.
This means regular comments on crypto market narratives, how they drive and are driven by prices. It means regular updates on macro developments, since they impact both investment drivers and individual opportunity. Geopolitics will feature, as blockchain is a tool for countries as well as people and businesses. There will be a lot of stablecoin pieces, as they are one of the key active vectors of blockchain impact on established systems. I’ll cover tokenization trends and CBDC frustrations. I’m looking forward to writing more about defi’s escape from its crypto-native bounds. Identity is a massive yet overlooked piece of the connectivity and resilience puzzle.
In sum, no shortage of things to talk about.
I hope you’ll stick with me on this journey, and am beyond grateful that you’ve joined me for at least part of it. Thank you. I love what I do, and writing for you is an honour.
As for next year, I’m looking forward to pulling on more threads, unpacking more trends, sharing more concerns, trying out new features, bringing back old ones and, most of all, working towards a better understanding of what’s coming and what’s on the other side.
It’s not going to be easy. But, as the saying goes, “bring it”. We’re in this together.
✨If you’re not a subscriber to the premium dailies, I hope you’ll consider becoming one! There’s regular insight into the trends shaping the crypto-macro overlap, music recommendations ‘cos why not, useful links, podcast lists, fun gifs and more. ✨
ASSORTED LINKS
(A selection of reads I came across this week that I think are worth sharing, not always about crypto or macro. I try to choose links without a paywall, but when I feel it’s worth making an exception, I specify.)
This piece is worth spending time on, as Gurwinder gives us plenty to think about: (26 Useful Concepts for 2026, The Prism)
“We’re socially conditioned to chase what we think everyone else wants. But your true heart’s desire can often be found in the thoughts you gravitate to while undistracted, such as in the shower. As Walt Whitman said, ‘If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.’”
One of my resolutions this year is less online buying, more supporting local businesses where possible. I love the convenience of click and pay, but it’s feeling increasingly feeling bland and the interruption of deliveries is irritating. Ted Gioia extols the benefits of second-hand shops even beyond the uplift from recycling – there’s the charm factor, and old goods that have endured are going to be of better quality. (Why Secondhand Is Now Better Than New, The Honest Broker)
A bawdy and sometimes humorous romp through a lexicon of slang and its history – I learnt many new words I’m sure I will never have the chance to use. (What street talk reveals about Anglophone civilisation, The Economist – paywall)
Bloomberg columnists are out in force with their recommendations for New Year Resolutions and a smattering of takes on what’s ahead – the food economy, the fate of luxury goods, the impact of AI on movies, and more. (The Year Ahead: A sensible guide to 2026, Bloomberg – paywall)
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!
(in this section, I share stuff that has NOTHING to do with macro or crypto, ‘cos it’s the weekend and life is interesting)
Madrid, the Spanish city in which I have the great fortune to live, has to be one of the most beautiful urban environments in December. It gets festooned with Christmas lights, on the trees, crossing the streets, forming heart-warming sculptures, displaying an inspiring commitment to the uplift of sparkle.
Here are just some of the pics I snapped while walking around – I’m sure you’ll be able to understand my heartbreak when they all come down next week.
DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade. Also, I often use AI for research instead of Google, but never for writing.