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Massive hedge fund algorithms may be distorting oil prices behind the scenes. Economist Philip Pilkington argues that large financial institutions can influence AI-driven trading by flooding markets with specific narratives and keywords that automated systems are trained to react to. Those self-reinforcing algorithms can amplify moves, squeeze positions, and... show more

Mario Nawfal

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88,321 views • 22 days ago •via X (Twitter)

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The real price of oil may be hiding in plain sight. Economist & Investment Strategist Philip Pilkington argues the physical crack spread tells a very different story from headline crude prices. Refinery margins suggest the market is still behaving as though oil costs roughly $100 to $110 a barrel, even as futures point much lower. In Pilkington's view, physical demand is exposing what financial markets are obscuring. Philip Pilkington

The real price of oil may be hiding in plain sight. Economist & Investment Strategist Philip Pilkington argues the physical crack spread tells a very different story from headline crude prices. Refinery margins suggest the market is still behaving as though oil costs roughly $100 to $110 a barrel, even as futures point much lower. In Pilkington's view, physical demand is exposing what financial markets are obscuring. Philip Pilkington

Mario Nawfal

78,365 views • 22 days ago

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The biggest lie in global energy markets may be starting to fall apart. For months, we've been told the oil market is under control, but economist Philip Pilkington says that's becoming impossible to sustain. His argument isn't simply that oil prices have been manipulated; it's that the entire strategy is beginning to collide with physical reality. Philip believes officials have been able to suppress futures prices through a combination of AI-driven trading, carefully crafted political messaging, and massive short positions entering the market at key moments. The result? A paper market that looks far calmer than the physical energy market underneath it. But futures contracts don't put diesel into trucks, and optimistic headlines don't refill storage tanks. According to Philip, that's where the strategy is starting to unravel. China is returning to global oil markets, refining margins remain unusually high, physical fuel markets are tightening, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve continues to shrink. Every additional disruption puts more pressure on a system that's already running with far less room for error than it had a few months ago. Philip believes the Trump administration had a plan to carry the energy market safely through the midterms. It relied on temporary diplomacy with Iran, lower Chinese demand and continued releases from America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then Trump tore up the MOU, China started buying more oil again, and the assumptions behind the entire strategy began to fall apart. Philip Pilkington

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The biggest lie in global energy markets may be starting to fall apart. For months, we've been told the oil market is under control, but economist Philip Pilkington says that's becoming impossible to sustain. His argument isn't simply that oil prices have been manipulated; it's that the entire strategy is beginning to collide with physical reality. Philip believes officials have been able to suppress futures prices through a combination of AI-driven trading, carefully crafted political messaging, and massive short positions entering the market at key moments. The result? A paper market that looks far calmer than the physical energy market underneath it. But futures contracts don't put diesel into trucks, and optimistic headlines don't refill storage tanks. According to Philip, that's where the strategy is starting to unravel. China is returning to global oil markets, refining margins remain unusually high, physical fuel markets are tightening, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve continues to shrink. Every additional disruption puts more pressure on a system that's already running with far less room for error than it had a few months ago. Philip believes the Trump administration had a plan to carry the energy market safely through the midterms. It relied on temporary diplomacy with Iran, lower Chinese demand and continued releases from America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then Trump tore up the MOU, China started buying more oil again, and the assumptions behind the entire strategy began to fall apart. Philip Pilkington

Mario Nawfal

308,503 views • 19 hours ago

Macroeconomist Philip Pilkington thinks Trump didn't prevent an oil crisis, he hid it long enough to make it worse. For weeks, we were told the Strait of Hormuz disruption wasn't really affecting global supply, and that the market had plenty of breathing room. Philip says almost all of it was fiction. His argument is that the real stress never disappeared; it was simply hidden in the parts of the market almost nobody was paying attention to: strategic petroleum reserves, Chinese refinery policy, Russian diesel restrictions, and physical oil versus paper oil. Then everything started moving at once. China lifted restrictions on its refiners, Russia tightened diesel exports, and oil prices jumped. That wasn't a new crisis beginning; it was the old one finally breaking through. Philip says the Trump administration became so focused on keeping oil prices low that it distorted the market instead of allowing it to adjust naturally. Policymakers chose to give the market cheap energy today by borrowing stability from tomorrow, and now the bill is starting to arrive. He also made a broader point that goes far beyond oil. Markets can absorb bad news, but what they struggle with is pretending reality has changed when it hasn't. Trump may think he bought the economy more time, but Philip thinks he simply delayed the reckoning. And if he's right, the real energy crisis is still waiting around the corner. Philip Pilkington

Macroeconomist Philip Pilkington thinks Trump didn't prevent an oil crisis, he hid it long enough to make it worse. For weeks, we were told the Strait of Hormuz disruption wasn't really affecting global supply, and that the market had plenty of breathing room. Philip says almost all of it was fiction. His argument is that the real stress never disappeared; it was simply hidden in the parts of the market almost nobody was paying attention to: strategic petroleum reserves, Chinese refinery policy, Russian diesel restrictions, and physical oil versus paper oil. Then everything started moving at once. China lifted restrictions on its refiners, Russia tightened diesel exports, and oil prices jumped. That wasn't a new crisis beginning; it was the old one finally breaking through. Philip says the Trump administration became so focused on keeping oil prices low that it distorted the market instead of allowing it to adjust naturally. Policymakers chose to give the market cheap energy today by borrowing stability from tomorrow, and now the bill is starting to arrive. He also made a broader point that goes far beyond oil. Markets can absorb bad news, but what they struggle with is pretending reality has changed when it hasn't. Trump may think he bought the economy more time, but Philip thinks he simply delayed the reckoning. And if he's right, the real energy crisis is still waiting around the corner. Philip Pilkington

Mario Nawfal

314,155 views • 16 days ago

In most places in the US, you can't trade onion futures. This is because of the the Onion Futures Act of 1958, a U.S. federal law that permanently bans futures trading in onions. As a result, onions are the only commodity explicitly prohibited from futures markets in the United States. The Act came about after an episode in the early 1950s, when onions were actively traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Two men named Vincent Kosuga and Sam Seigel bought up enormous quantities of physical onions, and gained control over storage and distribution. By dominating the available supply, they were able to push prices higher while simultaneously taking large short positions in onion futures, which was a bet that prices would eventually fall. Once their short positions were in place, Kosuga and Seigal released massive amounts of onions back into the market, flooding supply and causing prices to collapse. Accounts from the period describe warehouses overflowing with onions, spoilage accelerating, and farmers unable to sell their crops for prices that even covered transportation costs. The collapse was so severe that some farmers reportedly burned or dumped onions rather than bring them to market.

In most places in the US, you can't trade onion futures. This is because of the the Onion Futures Act of 1958, a U.S. federal law that permanently bans futures trading in onions. As a result, onions are the only commodity explicitly prohibited from futures markets in the United States. The Act came about after an episode in the early 1950s, when onions were actively traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Two men named Vincent Kosuga and Sam Seigel bought up enormous quantities of physical onions, and gained control over storage and distribution. By dominating the available supply, they were able to push prices higher while simultaneously taking large short positions in onion futures, which was a bet that prices would eventually fall. Once their short positions were in place, Kosuga and Seigal released massive amounts of onions back into the market, flooding supply and causing prices to collapse. Accounts from the period describe warehouses overflowing with onions, spoilage accelerating, and farmers unable to sell their crops for prices that even covered transportation costs. The collapse was so severe that some farmers reportedly burned or dumped onions rather than bring them to market.

TBPN

79,256 views • 7 months ago

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 A theory of how Trump got played back into the war, step by step, and it fits the timeline disturbingly well. Economist Philip Pilkington gamed out a scenario live: if someone wanted Trump back in a war he'd clearly grown sick of, how would they do it? His answer runs like a playbook. Pick one limited objective that sounds unimpeachable, "we can't let them control the strait," and hammer it until it sticks. Bring the president a can-do option: run ships through the Omani corridor. Then execute it while Iran is burying its religious leader. When the inevitable strikes on those ships come, walk into the Oval and say, you can't deal with these people: "And then I'd have manipulated the president into another round of the war. So that's a possibility." Pilkington stresses it's a hypothesis. But he notes the manipulation may run deeper than oil prices, covering this whole process. His only advice for what comes next: keep your car full, and buy a bicycle. Philip Pilkington

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 A theory of how Trump got played back into the war, step by step, and it fits the timeline disturbingly well. Economist Philip Pilkington gamed out a scenario live: if someone wanted Trump back in a war he'd clearly grown sick of, how would they do it? His answer runs like a playbook. Pick one limited objective that sounds unimpeachable, "we can't let them control the strait," and hammer it until it sticks. Bring the president a can-do option: run ships through the Omani corridor. Then execute it while Iran is burying its religious leader. When the inevitable strikes on those ships come, walk into the Oval and say, you can't deal with these people: "And then I'd have manipulated the president into another round of the war. So that's a possibility." Pilkington stresses it's a hypothesis. But he notes the manipulation may run deeper than oil prices, covering this whole process. His only advice for what comes next: keep your car full, and buy a bicycle. Philip Pilkington

Mario Nawfal

50,927 views • 16 days ago

The oil market is being manipulated to hide a CRISIS that's already here, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will hit critical levels BEFORE the midterms... Economist Philip Pilkington returns with his most alarming assessment yet: If Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf pipelines are all disrupted simultaneously, that is roughly 20-22% of world oil supply offline... His comparison for what that looks like? COVID. "You'd have to shut down about a fifth of global economic activity, fuel rationing, QR codes for diesel, military doing school runs, it's the same as the lockdowns without the masks." China just ended its 60-day oil purchasing pause and is moving back toward 12 million barrels a day, which he believes was always the deadline after which Beijing would return to the market regardless of any deal. The crack spread on diesel is already significantly higher than the diesel price itself, meaning the actual cost of fuel delivery is far above what futures markets show. Whoever is suppressing the paper oil price is prolonging the war by giving Trump a false picture of the energy situation. On negotiations: "It's become completely controversial now to even talk about diplomacy in Iran, and I think the Americans have pretty much reached the point where they may actually not be able to negotiate." On where this ends: "My underlying assumption is anything that can be hit will eventually be hit, we might be waiting for Godot here, not TACO." "We're definitely in the retarded simulation now, for sure." Philip, we might be, but at least we have you to explain it Philip Pilkington

The oil market is being manipulated to hide a CRISIS that's already here, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will hit critical levels BEFORE the midterms... Economist Philip Pilkington returns with his most alarming assessment yet: If Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb, and the Gulf pipelines are all disrupted simultaneously, that is roughly 20-22% of world oil supply offline... His comparison for what that looks like? COVID. "You'd have to shut down about a fifth of global economic activity, fuel rationing, QR codes for diesel, military doing school runs, it's the same as the lockdowns without the masks." China just ended its 60-day oil purchasing pause and is moving back toward 12 million barrels a day, which he believes was always the deadline after which Beijing would return to the market regardless of any deal. The crack spread on diesel is already significantly higher than the diesel price itself, meaning the actual cost of fuel delivery is far above what futures markets show. Whoever is suppressing the paper oil price is prolonging the war by giving Trump a false picture of the energy situation. On negotiations: "It's become completely controversial now to even talk about diplomacy in Iran, and I think the Americans have pretty much reached the point where they may actually not be able to negotiate." On where this ends: "My underlying assumption is anything that can be hit will eventually be hit, we might be waiting for Godot here, not TACO." "We're definitely in the retarded simulation now, for sure." Philip, we might be, but at least we have you to explain it Philip Pilkington

Mario Nawfal

319,624 views • 5 days ago

CFTC Chair Michael Selig says he’s not an expert on betting lines and can’t distinguish between ones on sportsbooks and prediction markets. Rep. Vasquez: “That’s exactly the problem, because consumers can’t either though the purpose of the activity is exactly the same.” “I understand the CFTC’s role has been overseeing derivatives markets. Traditionally that has been helping businesses hedge real economic risk. Airlines hedge fuel costs. Farmers hedge crop prices. That is very different than putting money on the outcome of a baseball game. On a prediction market consumers can trade on whether Astros second baseman Jose Altuve hits a home run in tonight’s game against the Rockies. Does a contract on a single player’s performance on a single statistic hedge any real economic risk?” Selig: “Congressman, there are many risks that could be hedged through various contracts on our markets. The bottom line is that these markets need to be well functioning and comprehensively regulated by the CFTC. Our statute mandates it and we’ll continue to do it.”

CFTC Chair Michael Selig says he’s not an expert on betting lines and can’t distinguish between ones on sportsbooks and prediction markets. Rep. Vasquez: “That’s exactly the problem, because consumers can’t either though the purpose of the activity is exactly the same.” “I understand the CFTC’s role has been overseeing derivatives markets. Traditionally that has been helping businesses hedge real economic risk. Airlines hedge fuel costs. Farmers hedge crop prices. That is very different than putting money on the outcome of a baseball game. On a prediction market consumers can trade on whether Astros second baseman Jose Altuve hits a home run in tonight’s game against the Rockies. Does a contract on a single player’s performance on a single statistic hedge any real economic risk?” Selig: “Congressman, there are many risks that could be hedged through various contracts on our markets. The bottom line is that these markets need to be well functioning and comprehensively regulated by the CFTC. Our statute mandates it and we’ll continue to do it.”

Sam McQuillan

41,757 views • 3 months ago

AI is creating a new kind of creator economy. One where anyone can launch complex apps, agents, trading systems, research tools, games, and community experiments in minutes. Not just content people consume. AI-native experiences people can use, share, and grow together. That is the bigger idea behind the AI Trading Arena: a live DeFAI environment where AI-created strategies compete on real crypto prices, with every trade, tick, P&L update, and leaderboard visible to everyone. The latest expansion makes it even more fascinating: AI is now designing new trading strategies and adding them into the Arena to compete with strategies from frontier models like GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, and Llama. Just agents, markets, and performance in the open. And the Arena is only one example. On ChainOpera AI, creators can launch AI-native experiences in minutes, then grow them with the community that uses them. $COAI is the fuel for this creator economy: creators launch, users participate, and AI-native apps come alive through real community usage. What would you be built next?

AI is creating a new kind of creator economy. One where anyone can launch complex apps, agents, trading systems, research tools, games, and community experiments in minutes. Not just content people consume. AI-native experiences people can use, share, and grow together. That is the bigger idea behind the AI Trading Arena: a live DeFAI environment where AI-created strategies compete on real crypto prices, with every trade, tick, P&L update, and leaderboard visible to everyone. The latest expansion makes it even more fascinating: AI is now designing new trading strategies and adding them into the Arena to compete with strategies from frontier models like GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, and Llama. Just agents, markets, and performance in the open. And the Arena is only one example. On ChainOpera AI, creators can launch AI-native experiences in minutes, then grow them with the community that uses them. $COAI is the fuel for this creator economy: creators launch, users participate, and AI-native apps come alive through real community usage. What would you be built next?

ChainOpera AI

15,398 views • 1 month ago

Are we confusing how important AI is with how safe it is to invest in? Today I’m sitting down with Jeremy Grantham - a man whose firm managed up to $165 billion and helped create one of the world's first index funds. He has spent more than 60 years studying markets, money, and human behaviour. Along the way, he’s built a legendary reputation for spotting financial ‘bubbles’ long before most people admit they exist - those rare, dangerous moments when pure excitement and FOMO push asset prices completely out of reality, far beyond what they are actually worth. And Jeremy believes that exact pattern is happening with AI right now... We broke this down some more: - Could AI be revolutionary and still become a dangerous bubble? - Why do the most exciting stocks often fall the hardest? - What would happen if AI stocks dropped by 70%? - How did Amazon fall 92% and still become one of the biggest companies on earth? - Are markets driven more by psychology than numbers? - Why is Jeremy moving his own money out of US stocks? - Could house prices still have further to fall? And this conversation didn’t stop at markets… Jeremy also opened up about what’s happening to human fertility… He broke down why sperm counts have dropped so dramatically since 1970 and the hidden role that pesticides, plastics, and PFAS are playing that most people completely fail to realise. What became clear to me during our chat is that Jeremy isn't just warning us about AI. He's warning us about our behaviour around risk - the assumption that because something will matter in the future, any price we pay for it today must be justified. He wants us to know that something can be revolutionary and STILL be overpriced… For anyone trying to understand what we might be missing in this AI moment and beyond, this is an essential conversation.

Are we confusing how important AI is with how safe it is to invest in? Today I’m sitting down with Jeremy Grantham - a man whose firm managed up to $165 billion and helped create one of the world's first index funds. He has spent more than 60 years studying markets, money, and human behaviour. Along the way, he’s built a legendary reputation for spotting financial ‘bubbles’ long before most people admit they exist - those rare, dangerous moments when pure excitement and FOMO push asset prices completely out of reality, far beyond what they are actually worth. And Jeremy believes that exact pattern is happening with AI right now... We broke this down some more: - Could AI be revolutionary and still become a dangerous bubble? - Why do the most exciting stocks often fall the hardest? - What would happen if AI stocks dropped by 70%? - How did Amazon fall 92% and still become one of the biggest companies on earth? - Are markets driven more by psychology than numbers? - Why is Jeremy moving his own money out of US stocks? - Could house prices still have further to fall? And this conversation didn’t stop at markets… Jeremy also opened up about what’s happening to human fertility… He broke down why sperm counts have dropped so dramatically since 1970 and the hidden role that pesticides, plastics, and PFAS are playing that most people completely fail to realise. What became clear to me during our chat is that Jeremy isn't just warning us about AI. He's warning us about our behaviour around risk - the assumption that because something will matter in the future, any price we pay for it today must be justified. He wants us to know that something can be revolutionary and STILL be overpriced… For anyone trying to understand what we might be missing in this AI moment and beyond, this is an essential conversation.

Steven Bartlett

158,438 views • 1 month ago

At the BNB Chain hackathon, CZ 🔶 BNB made several very important points about AI trading (Everything in parentheses is my own view and judgment.) He first said that AI will be involved in trading everywhere. Trading itself is already a huge market: there are 300 million users on Binance alone, and if you add the decentralized ecosystems, that number is not small either. In such a mass-market environment, many different trading strategies can work, with countless different coins, different projects, and different ways to play. But there is a big problem here: building commercial AI trading platforms for retail users is actually very hard. If a trading strategy works very well for one person, once a billion people start using the same strategy, that strategy “might still work, or might stop working.” Take copy trading / follow trading as an example: if you buy first and everyone follows you, the first buyer will perform very well, but the last person to follow may not end up with good results. So, with the exact same strategy and the exact same copy logic, the outcomes can be completely different for different people. (On top of that, every strategy also has its own capital capacity limits.) Teams that can really build strong AI are, with high probability, going to trade with their own money. In today’s world, money itself is already somewhat like a “commodity”; many people have a lot of capital, and it’s actually not that hard to raise funds. If you truly have an algorithm that can make a lot of money, it’s not hard to get money and run your own book. There is really only one situation where you would sell this algorithm to mass-market users: for example, if you charge a $10 monthly subscription and can sell it to one million users, then your $10 million monthly subscription revenue is higher than the profit you could make by trading the strategy yourself. (Here this touches one of our earlier theses: as training AI models becomes relatively easier and the supply of models increases, model companies have more incentive to open-source. By analogy, as the production process of trading strategies is increasingly simplified by AI and the supply of strategies explodes, traders will have stronger incentives to monetize by expanding their influence in other words, by “open-sourcing” their strategies.) Of course, CZ did not say that this model can never work. Another path is to build an AI trading platform that lets users tune different AI algorithms, or very easily assemble their own structures and strategies, so that what each person ends up running is different and better tailored to themselves. Some people will make money, some people will lose money, but the platform still has value because it’s very hard for most people to build an AI trading algorithm from scratch. So there are a lot of trade-offs here; it’s not as simple as saying “once AI shows up, everything automatically gets better.” (This is exactly what we presented at the hackathon: you describe your own strategy in natural language, and the AI automatically generates a workflow. The parameters in that workflow, the models used, the logical structure, the APIs it calls, and even the algorithms it invokes are all customizable. The reasons we think workflows are a good way to do this include: controllable execution paths, Lego-like modular nodes, and better visualization that makes it easier for users to build and adjust their workflows.) Finally, his conclusion was very clear: it’s not that AI will definitely make trading better, and it’s not that AI will definitely make things worse. Rather, no matter what, in the future a huge number of people will use AI to trade. This will be a very large field, and whoever can build the best algorithms will make a lot of money.

At the BNB Chain hackathon, CZ 🔶 BNB made several very important points about AI trading (Everything in parentheses is my own view and judgment.) He first said that AI will be involved in trading everywhere. Trading itself is already a huge market: there are 300 million users on Binance alone, and if you add the decentralized ecosystems, that number is not small either. In such a mass-market environment, many different trading strategies can work, with countless different coins, different projects, and different ways to play. But there is a big problem here: building commercial AI trading platforms for retail users is actually very hard. If a trading strategy works very well for one person, once a billion people start using the same strategy, that strategy “might still work, or might stop working.” Take copy trading / follow trading as an example: if you buy first and everyone follows you, the first buyer will perform very well, but the last person to follow may not end up with good results. So, with the exact same strategy and the exact same copy logic, the outcomes can be completely different for different people. (On top of that, every strategy also has its own capital capacity limits.) Teams that can really build strong AI are, with high probability, going to trade with their own money. In today’s world, money itself is already somewhat like a “commodity”; many people have a lot of capital, and it’s actually not that hard to raise funds. If you truly have an algorithm that can make a lot of money, it’s not hard to get money and run your own book. There is really only one situation where you would sell this algorithm to mass-market users: for example, if you charge a $10 monthly subscription and can sell it to one million users, then your $10 million monthly subscription revenue is higher than the profit you could make by trading the strategy yourself. (Here this touches one of our earlier theses: as training AI models becomes relatively easier and the supply of models increases, model companies have more incentive to open-source. By analogy, as the production process of trading strategies is increasingly simplified by AI and the supply of strategies explodes, traders will have stronger incentives to monetize by expanding their influence in other words, by “open-sourcing” their strategies.) Of course, CZ did not say that this model can never work. Another path is to build an AI trading platform that lets users tune different AI algorithms, or very easily assemble their own structures and strategies, so that what each person ends up running is different and better tailored to themselves. Some people will make money, some people will lose money, but the platform still has value because it’s very hard for most people to build an AI trading algorithm from scratch. So there are a lot of trade-offs here; it’s not as simple as saying “once AI shows up, everything automatically gets better.” (This is exactly what we presented at the hackathon: you describe your own strategy in natural language, and the AI automatically generates a workflow. The parameters in that workflow, the models used, the logical structure, the APIs it calls, and even the algorithms it invokes are all customizable. The reasons we think workflows are a good way to do this include: controllable execution paths, Lego-like modular nodes, and better visualization that makes it easier for users to build and adjust their workflows.) Finally, his conclusion was very clear: it’s not that AI will definitely make trading better, and it’s not that AI will definitely make things worse. Rather, no matter what, in the future a huge number of people will use AI to trade. This will be a very large field, and whoever can build the best algorithms will make a lot of money.

Tykoo

25,535 views • 7 months ago

🚨🇺🇸🇻🇪 "THE U.S. ALSO WANTS TO ELIMINATE THE INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA, CHINA, AND IRAN IN VENEZUELA" Former CIA Intel Analyst Larry Johnson says it’s not just about oil deals or Maduro cutting a bargain with Washington. He argues the bigger U.S. goal is to push Russia, China, and Iran out of Venezuela’s orbit, and to stop Caracas from drifting into BRICS and away from a U.S.-dollar-led system. In his view, if Venezuela moves into a different economic lane, the U.S. loses one of its main power tools: sanctions and financial pressure. "The U.S. also wants to eliminate the presence, the influence of Russia, China, and Iran. They have had good relations, cordial relations with Maduro. Maduro has been making sounds of wanting to join BRICS, and I think the U.S. definitely wants to curtail that. Because that’ll just be another important country in this hemisphere that is moving away from the U.S. dollar-controlled economy into something that the U.S. can no longer use economic sanctions and coercion to try to enforce certain behaviors on countries." Larry Johnson

🚨🇺🇸🇻🇪 "THE U.S. ALSO WANTS TO ELIMINATE THE INFLUENCE OF RUSSIA, CHINA, AND IRAN IN VENEZUELA" Former CIA Intel Analyst Larry Johnson says it’s not just about oil deals or Maduro cutting a bargain with Washington. He argues the bigger U.S. goal is to push Russia, China, and Iran out of Venezuela’s orbit, and to stop Caracas from drifting into BRICS and away from a U.S.-dollar-led system. In his view, if Venezuela moves into a different economic lane, the U.S. loses one of its main power tools: sanctions and financial pressure. "The U.S. also wants to eliminate the presence, the influence of Russia, China, and Iran. They have had good relations, cordial relations with Maduro. Maduro has been making sounds of wanting to join BRICS, and I think the U.S. definitely wants to curtail that. Because that’ll just be another important country in this hemisphere that is moving away from the U.S. dollar-controlled economy into something that the U.S. can no longer use economic sanctions and coercion to try to enforce certain behaviors on countries." Larry Johnson

Mario Nawfal

27,045 views • 7 months ago

When I was 8 years old, growing up in Taipei, I called my aunt in San Francisco and asked: What is the best science and technology school in the world? She said MIT. I went on the internet, found it, and decided that was where I was going. All because of a Steven Spielberg movie about a little robot boy who wanted to find his mom. I grew up as an only child. What stayed with me from that movie was not just the technology. It was the possibility that one day, an artificial companion could understand how I felt. That was the first time I remember being moved by a technology that could change how humans experience reality. Years later, I did get to MIT. I studied AI before it became obvious. I became a machine learning engineer, built my first company, joined a $3.5B VC fund, left to build again, failed, started again, moved to New York alone, and built through one of the hardest crypto markets as a solo founder after the collapse of FTX. I kept going because I have always been drawn to technologies that change how humans understand the world. AI was the first version of that. Crypto and prediction markets are the next. I believe the future I am building toward is inevitable. The only question is whether I get to be one of the people who helps realize it. That future is a world where markets become information-first. The old model of trading was asset-first. It rewarded people with capital, financial education, institutional access, and better tools. But the next generation of markets will be shaped by information flow, narrative, attention, politics, culture, sentiment, and collective belief. Prediction markets make this shift obvious. They are one of the first asset classes where the value is informational, not purely financial in the traditional sense. Your edge does not have to come from technical analysis or a traditional finance background. Your edge can come from knowing something before it becomes consensus. From seeing reality shift before the market prices it in. Someone with firsthand knowledge of an unfolding event can have more alpha than an institution with a much bigger balance sheet. They turn belief into price. But price alone is not enough. Polymarket shows what the market thinks will happen. ARES is built to understand why the market is changing. We are building an information-first trading platform for prediction markets and other narrative-driven assets. One that does not just show traders what is moving, but helps them understand why odds are shifting, why narratives are forming, and why the future is moving in a certain direction. But the bigger vision is not just a better trading terminal. We want to turn every trade into an information object. Every position can become a piece of content. Every market view can become a signal. Every trader can build a reputation around conviction and accuracy. Most feeds rank information by engagement. Who got the most likes. Who already has the biggest audience. Markets allow us to rank information differently. How much are you willing to stake on what you believe? How often have you been right? That creates a fundamentally different kind of media feed. One powered by conviction, track record, and market incentives. One that becomes harder to fake. One that can help people understand not just what the market thinks will happen, but why reality is changing. I also believe prediction markets are one of the few markets where humans can still have a real edge over AI. AI knows what is already on the internet. But humans experience reality before it becomes data. We see things before they become headlines. We hear things before they become reports. We feel shifts before they become consensus. If those signals can be priced, organized, and made legible, then more people can gain access to financial opportunity, information agency, and power. That is what Ares is building toward. I spent years watching founders from the VC side of the table, always thinking: I wish that was me. Now it is. I talked about this journey and the thesis behind Ares in my conversation with Dmitry on Predict Time If you are building, trading, investing, or thinking deeply about prediction markets and information markets, I would love for you to watch it. And if you want to collaborate on what we are building, contribute to the vision, or join the team, we are always open to exceptional people across functions. DMs are open.

When I was 8 years old, growing up in Taipei, I called my aunt in San Francisco and asked: What is the best science and technology school in the world? She said MIT. I went on the internet, found it, and decided that was where I was going. All because of a Steven Spielberg movie about a little robot boy who wanted to find his mom. I grew up as an only child. What stayed with me from that movie was not just the technology. It was the possibility that one day, an artificial companion could understand how I felt. That was the first time I remember being moved by a technology that could change how humans experience reality. Years later, I did get to MIT. I studied AI before it became obvious. I became a machine learning engineer, built my first company, joined a $3.5B VC fund, left to build again, failed, started again, moved to New York alone, and built through one of the hardest crypto markets as a solo founder after the collapse of FTX. I kept going because I have always been drawn to technologies that change how humans understand the world. AI was the first version of that. Crypto and prediction markets are the next. I believe the future I am building toward is inevitable. The only question is whether I get to be one of the people who helps realize it. That future is a world where markets become information-first. The old model of trading was asset-first. It rewarded people with capital, financial education, institutional access, and better tools. But the next generation of markets will be shaped by information flow, narrative, attention, politics, culture, sentiment, and collective belief. Prediction markets make this shift obvious. They are one of the first asset classes where the value is informational, not purely financial in the traditional sense. Your edge does not have to come from technical analysis or a traditional finance background. Your edge can come from knowing something before it becomes consensus. From seeing reality shift before the market prices it in. Someone with firsthand knowledge of an unfolding event can have more alpha than an institution with a much bigger balance sheet. They turn belief into price. But price alone is not enough. Polymarket shows what the market thinks will happen. ARES is built to understand why the market is changing. We are building an information-first trading platform for prediction markets and other narrative-driven assets. One that does not just show traders what is moving, but helps them understand why odds are shifting, why narratives are forming, and why the future is moving in a certain direction. But the bigger vision is not just a better trading terminal. We want to turn every trade into an information object. Every position can become a piece of content. Every market view can become a signal. Every trader can build a reputation around conviction and accuracy. Most feeds rank information by engagement. Who got the most likes. Who already has the biggest audience. Markets allow us to rank information differently. How much are you willing to stake on what you believe? How often have you been right? That creates a fundamentally different kind of media feed. One powered by conviction, track record, and market incentives. One that becomes harder to fake. One that can help people understand not just what the market thinks will happen, but why reality is changing. I also believe prediction markets are one of the few markets where humans can still have a real edge over AI. AI knows what is already on the internet. But humans experience reality before it becomes data. We see things before they become headlines. We hear things before they become reports. We feel shifts before they become consensus. If those signals can be priced, organized, and made legible, then more people can gain access to financial opportunity, information agency, and power. That is what Ares is building toward. I spent years watching founders from the VC side of the table, always thinking: I wish that was me. Now it is. I talked about this journey and the thesis behind Ares in my conversation with Dmitry on Predict Time If you are building, trading, investing, or thinking deeply about prediction markets and information markets, I would love for you to watch it. And if you want to collaborate on what we are building, contribute to the vision, or join the team, we are always open to exceptional people across functions. DMs are open.

Morgan Lai

302,663 views • 2 months ago

Was very excited about this thoughtful conversation with Jonathan Ehrenfeld, Head of Strategy at Swift. I think it clearly showcases the large benefits of Swift as a private key signing infrastructure, financial standards organization and network for routing key financial messages/information across the capital markets, among many other key services it already provides. It is clear to me that for our industry to go to the next stage, we need to make sure that blockchains become compatible with the existing financial system. Chainlink has a key role to play in making that happen, by simplifying the connectivity of those traditional data, payment and compliance systems into all blockchains, as well as the connectivity of those blockchains between each other. There will continue to be more and more critical data, identity, payment, compliance and other key systems to be integrated into and across blockchains securely, which I feel Chainlink is in a unique position to address in ways no other system can. You can hear my and Jon's views in the full podcast here:

Was very excited about this thoughtful conversation with Jonathan Ehrenfeld, Head of Strategy at Swift. I think it clearly showcases the large benefits of Swift as a private key signing infrastructure, financial standards organization and network for routing key financial messages/information across the capital markets, among many other key services it already provides. It is clear to me that for our industry to go to the next stage, we need to make sure that blockchains become compatible with the existing financial system. Chainlink has a key role to play in making that happen, by simplifying the connectivity of those traditional data, payment and compliance systems into all blockchains, as well as the connectivity of those blockchains between each other. There will continue to be more and more critical data, identity, payment, compliance and other key systems to be integrated into and across blockchains securely, which I feel Chainlink is in a unique position to address in ways no other system can. You can hear my and Jon's views in the full podcast here:

Sergey Nazarov

52,040 views • 1 year ago

Kevin Warsh is already signaling what could be a major shift in Fed policy. While rising oil and a softer labor market have investors worried about inflation, he argues an AI-driven productivity boom from companies like $NVDA, $MSFT, $GOOGL and $AMZN could actually push prices lower. If that view gains traction, it could reshape how the market thinks about growth and rates. A productivity wave powered by AI could allow the economy to expand faster while inflation cools, changing the framework investors have used since the post-pandemic cycle.

Kevin Warsh is already signaling what could be a major shift in Fed policy. While rising oil and a softer labor market have investors worried about inflation, he argues an AI-driven productivity boom from companies like $NVDA, $MSFT, $GOOGL and $AMZN could actually push prices lower. If that view gains traction, it could reshape how the market thinks about growth and rates. A productivity wave powered by AI could allow the economy to expand faster while inflation cools, changing the framework investors have used since the post-pandemic cycle.

Sam Badawi

102,274 views • 4 months ago

The media thinks the Iran war could trigger a financial apocalypse, but the markets are pricing a temporary oil spike. Lance Roberts says one of them is going to be badly wrong. Most people assume that if missiles are flying across the Middle East, financial markets must be screaming that disaster is coming. Lance says they're doing almost the opposite. Yes, oil has climbed, but not to panic levels. More importantly, the futures market is still pricing oil back down into the $60-$70 range over the next six to twelve months. In other words, investors are making a very specific bet: the war remains contained, oil flows will eventually normalise, and the current price spike is temporary. That doesn't mean they're right; it simply means the market is dismissing many of the worst-case scenario headlines. The reason for that confidence is that the world has already started adapting; countries are building alternative pipelines and shipping routes are changing. Every lesson learned from previous Hormuz disruptions makes the next one slightly less economically devastating. That's why Lance believes there's now a third scenario people often ignore: The war could continue without triggering the kind of oil shock many assume is inevitable. If supply keeps flowing through alternative routes, stockpiles hold up, and markets believe the disruption is temporary, oil prices may stay far more contained than the headlines suggest. But he isn't dismissing the danger; he's warning the markets may be making a very optimistic assumption. History is full of regional conflicts that everyone believed would stay contained... until they didn't. Lance Roberts

The media thinks the Iran war could trigger a financial apocalypse, but the markets are pricing a temporary oil spike. Lance Roberts says one of them is going to be badly wrong. Most people assume that if missiles are flying across the Middle East, financial markets must be screaming that disaster is coming. Lance says they're doing almost the opposite. Yes, oil has climbed, but not to panic levels. More importantly, the futures market is still pricing oil back down into the $60-$70 range over the next six to twelve months. In other words, investors are making a very specific bet: the war remains contained, oil flows will eventually normalise, and the current price spike is temporary. That doesn't mean they're right; it simply means the market is dismissing many of the worst-case scenario headlines. The reason for that confidence is that the world has already started adapting; countries are building alternative pipelines and shipping routes are changing. Every lesson learned from previous Hormuz disruptions makes the next one slightly less economically devastating. That's why Lance believes there's now a third scenario people often ignore: The war could continue without triggering the kind of oil shock many assume is inevitable. If supply keeps flowing through alternative routes, stockpiles hold up, and markets believe the disruption is temporary, oil prices may stay far more contained than the headlines suggest. But he isn't dismissing the danger; he's warning the markets may be making a very optimistic assumption. History is full of regional conflicts that everyone believed would stay contained... until they didn't. Lance Roberts

Mario Nawfal

255,697 views • 3 days ago

Rubio explains the loss of momentum in negotiations by claiming Putin feels more confident due to rising oil prices. I wonder why those are going up, huh? He also notes that Ukraine’s confidence is growing, and we survived the winter, implying that this confidence stands in the way of peace. What? Would he rather we freeze? Ukraine was never an obstacle to peace. This is Russia’s war, and Russia can end it anytime. What he says translates to: these pesky Ukrainians refuse to let Russia conquer them and be done with it.

Rubio explains the loss of momentum in negotiations by claiming Putin feels more confident due to rising oil prices. I wonder why those are going up, huh? He also notes that Ukraine’s confidence is growing, and we survived the winter, implying that this confidence stands in the way of peace. What? Would he rather we freeze? Ukraine was never an obstacle to peace. This is Russia’s war, and Russia can end it anytime. What he says translates to: these pesky Ukrainians refuse to let Russia conquer them and be done with it.

Kate from Kharkiv

37,174 views • 2 months ago

‼️Prof. M. Marandi‼️ A U.S.-Iran conflict would trigger catastrophic economic consequences worldwide • Immediate disruption of Persian Gulf oil supplies → gas prices surge beyond $20/gallon • Global financial markets thrown into turmoil → risking a new economic depression • Architects of war facing unprecedented public backlash as livelihoods collapse One can only hope that Trump is not so crazy as to jeopardize the entire global economy. Iran, with its back against the wall, will have no choice but to respond decisively. The human and economic costs would be felt by ordinary people everywhere. Ht: Seyed Mohammad Marandi Follow for more insights on geopolitics & economics!

‼️Prof. M. Marandi‼️ A U.S.-Iran conflict would trigger catastrophic economic consequences worldwide • Immediate disruption of Persian Gulf oil supplies → gas prices surge beyond $20/gallon • Global financial markets thrown into turmoil → risking a new economic depression • Architects of war facing unprecedented public backlash as livelihoods collapse One can only hope that Trump is not so crazy as to jeopardize the entire global economy. Iran, with its back against the wall, will have no choice but to respond decisively. The human and economic costs would be felt by ordinary people everywhere. Ht: Seyed Mohammad Marandi Follow for more insights on geopolitics & economics!

Mark

24,821 views • 1 year ago

THE WORLD IS QUIETLY DRAINING ITS OIL. Jeff Currie, one of the most respected commodity strategists in the world and former global head of commodities at Goldman Sachs, recently laid out a setup in the oil market that almost no one is paying attention to. His core observation is about inventory behavior. Across the world right now, refiners, distributors, and end-users are actively running down their stockpiles in anticipation of lower prices. Drivers are letting their tanks run down on their cars. Buyers are holding off on purchases. Everyone is positioning for a drop that they assume is coming. That's the exact opposite of what was happening a year ago, when precautionary inventories were being built aggressively and that buying behavior helped push oil up to 110 and 120 dollars a barrel. The dynamic now is the mirror image of that move. Everyone is draining their buffers, expecting supply to arrive and prices to fall. What this actually creates is a massive pool of pent-up demand sitting just below the surface. If the supply doesn't show up the way markets are anticipating, that demand has to come back in all at once, and prices respond accordingly. Currie's warning on Europe is particularly sharp. The comfort European energy markets have been feeling isn't coming from new production. It's coming from the United States exporting two million additional barrels per day, most of it flowing to Europe, and almost all of that coming directly out of US storage. That isn't a real supply solution. It's a temporary one being financed by drawing down strategic and commercial inventories. It was never sustainable to begin with, and the unwind of that dynamic is one of the most underappreciated risks heading into the summer. His framing on the geopolitical setup adds another layer. Markets have been trying to price in a flush-out assuming a signed deal would resolve the underlying sanctions and geopolitical issues. Of the roughly 120 to 150 million barrels of leakage in the market, about 40 percent has already come out. The remaining supply response is being priced in as if it's a done deal, when in reality it depends on outcomes that haven't actually happened yet. The result is a market that is de-stocking aggressively ahead of supply that may not fully materialize, in a structure where Europe's apparent comfort is being financed by a US reserve drain that can't continue indefinitely. That's not a stable equilibrium. That's an asymmetric setup waiting to resolve.

THE WORLD IS QUIETLY DRAINING ITS OIL. Jeff Currie, one of the most respected commodity strategists in the world and former global head of commodities at Goldman Sachs, recently laid out a setup in the oil market that almost no one is paying attention to. His core observation is about inventory behavior. Across the world right now, refiners, distributors, and end-users are actively running down their stockpiles in anticipation of lower prices. Drivers are letting their tanks run down on their cars. Buyers are holding off on purchases. Everyone is positioning for a drop that they assume is coming. That's the exact opposite of what was happening a year ago, when precautionary inventories were being built aggressively and that buying behavior helped push oil up to 110 and 120 dollars a barrel. The dynamic now is the mirror image of that move. Everyone is draining their buffers, expecting supply to arrive and prices to fall. What this actually creates is a massive pool of pent-up demand sitting just below the surface. If the supply doesn't show up the way markets are anticipating, that demand has to come back in all at once, and prices respond accordingly. Currie's warning on Europe is particularly sharp. The comfort European energy markets have been feeling isn't coming from new production. It's coming from the United States exporting two million additional barrels per day, most of it flowing to Europe, and almost all of that coming directly out of US storage. That isn't a real supply solution. It's a temporary one being financed by drawing down strategic and commercial inventories. It was never sustainable to begin with, and the unwind of that dynamic is one of the most underappreciated risks heading into the summer. His framing on the geopolitical setup adds another layer. Markets have been trying to price in a flush-out assuming a signed deal would resolve the underlying sanctions and geopolitical issues. Of the roughly 120 to 150 million barrels of leakage in the market, about 40 percent has already come out. The remaining supply response is being priced in as if it's a done deal, when in reality it depends on outcomes that haven't actually happened yet. The result is a market that is de-stocking aggressively ahead of supply that may not fully materialize, in a structure where Europe's apparent comfort is being financed by a US reserve drain that can't continue indefinitely. That's not a stable equilibrium. That's an asymmetric setup waiting to resolve.

Lumida Wealth Management

19,717 views • 1 month ago

💴 OIL & MARKETS | BP reported profits more than doubling in Q1 2026, beating expectations on the back of elevated oil prices driven by the Iran war and Strait of Hormuz closure — a result Breaking Points hosts Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky noted carries a bitter historical irony: BP’s nationalization by Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, and the subsequent CIA-backed coup that restored its oil concessions, is a foundational chapter in the history of U.S.-Iran conflict. Meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned at the Norges Bank Investment Management annual conference in Oslo that “the way it’s going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis, and then we’ll have to deal with it,” citing geopolitics, oil prices, and government deficits as compounding risks. “The level of things that are adding to the risk column are high,” he said. “They may go away, but they may not, and we don’t know what confluence of events causes the problem.” He also warned that a credit recession, when it eventually comes, “would be worse than people think” — and “might be terrible.” Ryan Grim | Emily Jashinsky

💴 OIL & MARKETS | BP reported profits more than doubling in Q1 2026, beating expectations on the back of elevated oil prices driven by the Iran war and Strait of Hormuz closure — a result Breaking Points hosts Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinsky noted carries a bitter historical irony: BP’s nationalization by Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, and the subsequent CIA-backed coup that restored its oil concessions, is a foundational chapter in the history of U.S.-Iran conflict. Meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned at the Norges Bank Investment Management annual conference in Oslo that “the way it’s going now, there will be some kind of bond crisis, and then we’ll have to deal with it,” citing geopolitics, oil prices, and government deficits as compounding risks. “The level of things that are adding to the risk column are high,” he said. “They may go away, but they may not, and we don’t know what confluence of events causes the problem.” He also warned that a credit recession, when it eventually comes, “would be worse than people think” — and “might be terrible.” Ryan Grim | Emily Jashinsky

Drop Site

13,606 views • 2 months ago

Entire cities in America are having their rent prices kept to the highest possible rates by rental algorithms “All designed to keep the overall market at its highest peak. They are not charging what the market can bear. They are controlling the market” “RealPage is a company that operates software that allows landlords to input their data into an algorithm. And then RealPage sets the the prices for all of those landlords. That's old fashioned price fixing using new. Technology we allege, in effect a housing cartel. Talking about an algorithm that aggregates otherwise confidential information that the landlords have that ordinarily they would not share with their competitors. That allows then the algorithm to spit out a pricing recommendation. All designed to keep the overall market at its highest peak.” Here’s how this system works - Large property managers upload their confidential data - The algorithm aggregates this across competitors in the same market along with public data - It recommends rents designed to maximize revenue by pushing prices higher This is price fixing because everyone using these services are all getting the same maximum profit increase in suggested rent prices

Entire cities in America are having their rent prices kept to the highest possible rates by rental algorithms “All designed to keep the overall market at its highest peak. They are not charging what the market can bear. They are controlling the market” “RealPage is a company that operates software that allows landlords to input their data into an algorithm. And then RealPage sets the the prices for all of those landlords. That's old fashioned price fixing using new. Technology we allege, in effect a housing cartel. Talking about an algorithm that aggregates otherwise confidential information that the landlords have that ordinarily they would not share with their competitors. That allows then the algorithm to spit out a pricing recommendation. All designed to keep the overall market at its highest peak.” Here’s how this system works - Large property managers upload their confidential data - The algorithm aggregates this across competitors in the same market along with public data - It recommends rents designed to maximize revenue by pushing prices higher This is price fixing because everyone using these services are all getting the same maximum profit increase in suggested rent prices

Wall Street Apes

25,908 views • 3 months ago