Founder of Verdicti Ventures 🧠 🔭 A Strategic Partner for Digital Asset Growth, Angel and AI-Enabled Business Operations
Joined March 2009
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Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨 THE NEXT MONETARY WAR BETWEEN U.S. and CHINA HAS ALREADY STARTED
The U.S. is betting on Digital Dollars (Stablecoins) while China is betting on physical gold.
Trump and the Treasury just admitted the quiet part out loud.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: We will keep the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and will use stablecoins to do it.
Trump’s January 2025 order made dollar-backed coins official policy. The GENIUS Act locked the mechanism in: every compliant stablecoin must sit 1-for-1 on cash, T-bills, and Treasury repos.
That’s the escape hatch. America can’t print gold. It can print demand for its own debt.
How it works:
Billions of people who will never open a U.S. bank account can hold a dollar token. Every new token forces the issuer to buy short-term Treasuries.
Dollar demand gets exported on crypto rails.
The reserve currency survives even if SWIFT loses corridors because the world is still holding a claim on U.S. paper.
It’s not a gold standard. It’s a digital T-bill standard wearing a crypto costume.
Meanwhile China is doing the opposite:
The PBOC just posted its 21st straight month of gold buying. Official holdings: ~2,366 tonnes. They’re stacking metal like the clock is running out.
Hong Kong already opened the first offshore Shanghai Gold Exchange vault. The city wants 2,000+ tonnes of storage. More vaults are being scoped for Singapore, Dubai, Riyadh, Moscow. The pitch is simple: hold yuan, convert it to gold you can actually take delivery of.
That’s the old-school play.
Physical collateral.
Offshore vaults.
Yuan contracts settled in metal, not promises.
Two strategies. Same problem.
The London Metal Exchange (LME) Treasury Chief Just Quit London For The Crypto Firm “Ripple” For Tokenized Commodities on XRP Ledger As China Builds a Yuan-Gold Vault Settlement System.
That product is already live. Assetiko gold XAUa and silver XAGa on the XRP Ledger. Swap metal to native XRP on @Trensik_com without leaving the book.
The U.S. is trying to keep the dollar’s privilege by turning private coins into a global bid for Treasuries.
China is trying to leave the privilege by stacking gold and building a vault-and-settlement network that doesn’t need Washington’s permission.
One side is digitizing the debt. The other is hoarding the metal.
Watch which one the rest of the world actually trusts when the next shock hits.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
Last month, we demonstrated high-rate alchemy: turning mercury into real, stable gold, beating CERN’s record by a factor of 10.
Last week, we enriched isotopes in the world’s most powerful plasma centrifuge, beating the Soviet record that stood for 40 years.
Now, we’re building a fusion reactor in San Francisco to achieve record power density.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
After six years in stealth, Atomic Machines is out. Our mission: on-demand, universal command of matter. First beachhead: the Matter Compiler, an AI-native manufacturing system that builds working micro-machines from code alone. No per-product tooling. No process development. Different code, different machine.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨 S&P 500 IS SETTING UP SAME TOP AGAIN
And the pattern has been running like clockwork
Every 2 years the market forms a top: 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026
Every time it ends the same way:
2020 Crash: -32% to Fib 0.5
2022 Crash: -27% to Fib 0.5
2025 Crash: -22% to Fib 0.5
Fib 0.5 is the exact midpoint of the entire move. Every crash found its floor there
Now look at $SPX at 7,813: same rounded top, the same slow curl, the same setup before the drop
If history repeats, the next target is ~$6,200 (-20%)
The structure hasn't changed. Neither has the level
Get ready!
FOLLOW + NOTIFS ON!
🚨 $SPX IS PREPARING A MAJOR DUMP
Everyone's celebrating new ATHs. I'm reading Wyckoff structure underneath
SOW → AR → UT at 7,825. Distribution is already printed on weekly
My roadmap:
→ Final push into 8,000 (UTAD), late buyers get trapped
→ Sell-side liquidity at ~7,500 and ~7,230 gets swept
→ Creek breaks, selling accelerates
→ 6,500 gives way, 6,318 fails
→ Spring near 6,200
That's ~20% from here. Maximum fear. Retail capitulates, smart money accumulates
Then: Test at 6,500 → reclaim → new markup
Not a crash call. A cycle map: Distribution → Spring → Markup
The top never comes with a warning. You recognize it after it happens
Turn on notifications. I'll update every phase
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
Where does money invested into the AI buildout actually go?
For every $100 flowing into the supply chain:
- $50 to chips
- $20 to power
- $15 to networking
- $15 to cooling, buildings, and land
More charts in State of Markets II: a16z.news/p/state-of-markets…
Introducing our State of Markets pt 2, along with a companion podcast where we unpack the data and discuss what comes next.
Tech is the everything cycle.
Supply: putting the buildout in context, just passed railroads as % of GDP. The wisdom of Elon is real: the factory (or the datacenter!) is the product.
Demand: diffusion is so, so early. Median AI vendor spending in the top 1% of companies is 8x that of the top 10%. Only about 30% of S&P 500 companies report a quantified AI impact, which means there’s a substantial opportunity in connecting models to a company's data and workflows. Diffusion into companies is one of the main themes of the next 5 years.
We’re entering the agent work period. Only a few million users today, but applicable to billions of internet users with massive surplus created. META/GOOG monetize US users at $200+ per year today. Agent opportunity is much higher.
Mega-trends the next 5 years: Consumer agents, Robotics, Autonomy, AI x bio, Personal health, Diffusion into enterprise, New era of American Dynamism.
Much more in our SoM report here - a16z.news/p/state-of-markets…
@a16z @sarahdingwang @aleximm @santiago__rdz
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨 BITCOIN’S 4-YEAR CYCLE IS ABOUT TO CREATE ANOTHER MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY
2014 was a bear market.
2018 was a bear market.
2022 was a bear market.
Now we’re in 2026.
The pattern has been brutally simple:
2011 → BUY
2012 → HOLD
2013 → SELL
2014 → BEAR
2015 → BUY
2016 → HOLD
2017 → SELL
2018 → BEAR
2019 → BUY
2020 → HOLD
2021 → SELL
2022 → BEAR
2023 → BUY
2024 → HOLD
2025 → SELL
2026 → BEAR ← WE ARE HERE
If the 4-year rhythm continues:
2027 → BUY
2028 → HOLD
2029 → SELL
2030 → BEAR
That’s why I’m not afraid of another brutal drop this year.
I WANT IT.
The lower Bitcoin goes, the better the setup becomes for the next cycle.
Most people will wait until $BTC is ripping again before they feel safe buying.
I’m looking for the moment when almost nobody wants it.
For the record:
I called the $126K cycle top.
I told you I was buying around $60K in June.
And I’ll put my next major entry here publicly before it becomes obvious.
Save this chart.
2026 is the fear.
2027 could be the opportunity.
2029 is where I’ll be watching for the next major exit.
Follow + turn notifications on.
The next call could matter more than the last one.
The $1M AI Business Stack Every Founder Should Know in 2026
theaibuilders.co/blog/the-1m…
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
It's official.
The S&P 500 relative to US M2 money supply has now surpassed its Dot-Com Bubble peak.
The reading is now 0.330, above the 0.308 level hit in August 2000.
That level marked one of the WORST stock market peaks in modern history.
After the S&P 500 topped in March 2000, it fell nearly 50% over the next 2.5 years.
It then took about 7 years for the S&P 500 to reclaim that high.
Now, stocks have broken above that peak again.
The onchain train will not stop
Why Treasury says crypto's regulatory momentum won't stop
coindesk.com/video/why-treas…
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
The Fed is printing money to buy US Treasury bills... more than during Covid.
- Covid: ~$320B
- Last 9 months: ~$355B
Everyone is talking about the Fed hike... no one is talking about Warsh printing money Covid-style to buy UST bills.
At the same time, Bessent is issuing more UST bills to buy back US long-term debt.
In other words, the Treasury buyback is nothing else than QE in disguise.
We don't own enough hard assets for what's coming.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
It’s becoming increasingly clear that crypto platforms are converging toward the same business models.
Not because everyone suddenly had the same vision but because there are still only a handful of things in crypto that have found real PMF and actually make money.
![: : [Crypto/Article] Why Crypto Businesses All Look the Same Now](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSJl0LDa8AAu2Hw.jpg)
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨 THE NEXT MONETARY WAR BETWEEN U.S. and CHINA HAS ALREADY STARTED
The U.S. is betting on Digital Dollars (Stablecoins) while China is betting on physical gold.
Trump and the Treasury just admitted the quiet part out loud.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: We will keep the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and will use stablecoins to do it.
Trump’s January 2025 order made dollar-backed coins official policy. The GENIUS Act locked the mechanism in: every compliant stablecoin must sit 1-for-1 on cash, T-bills, and Treasury repos.
That’s the escape hatch. America can’t print gold. It can print demand for its own debt.
How it works:
Billions of people who will never open a U.S. bank account can hold a dollar token. Every new token forces the issuer to buy short-term Treasuries.
Dollar demand gets exported on crypto rails.
The reserve currency survives even if SWIFT loses corridors because the world is still holding a claim on U.S. paper.
It’s not a gold standard. It’s a digital T-bill standard wearing a crypto costume.
Meanwhile China is doing the opposite:
The PBOC just posted its 21st straight month of gold buying. Official holdings: ~2,366 tonnes. They’re stacking metal like the clock is running out.
Hong Kong already opened the first offshore Shanghai Gold Exchange vault. The city wants 2,000+ tonnes of storage. More vaults are being scoped for Singapore, Dubai, Riyadh, Moscow. The pitch is simple: hold yuan, convert it to gold you can actually take delivery of.
That’s the old-school play.
Physical collateral.
Offshore vaults.
Yuan contracts settled in metal, not promises.
Two strategies. Same problem.
The London Metal Exchange (LME) Treasury Chief Just Quit London For The Crypto Firm “Ripple” For Tokenized Commodities on XRP Ledger As China Builds a Yuan-Gold Vault Settlement System.
That product is already live. Assetiko gold XAUa and silver XAGa on the XRP Ledger. Swap metal to native XRP on @Trensik_com without leaving the book.
The U.S. is trying to keep the dollar’s privilege by turning private coins into a global bid for Treasuries.
China is trying to leave the privilege by stacking gold and building a vault-and-settlement network that doesn’t need Washington’s permission.
One side is digitizing the debt. The other is hoarding the metal.
Watch which one the rest of the world actually trusts when the next shock hits.
I will say this carefully, as someone who has spent decades around sovereign balance sheets, central bank liquidity facilities, and crisis management frameworks.
What you are witnessing is rarely what it appears to be on the surface.
Periods of geopolitical tension, financial instability, and market volatility have historically served a second function beyond their immediate narrative. They create political and public justification for structural change. New oversight. New controls. New infrastructure.
In banking, large scale system upgrades are never implemented in calm waters. They are introduced when existing systems are visibly strained.
The current environment feels chaotic to many. From where I sit, it feels transitional.
For years, institutions have been preparing alternative settlement architecture. Real time liquidity rails. Interoperable digital assets. Identity anchored compliance layers. These frameworks do not emerge overnight. They are planned, modeled, stress tested, and quietly aligned across jurisdictions long before public adoption.
When legacy systems show their limitations, the path for replacement becomes politically acceptable.
That is the context in which Ripple must be understood.
Absorption does not mean destruction. It means integration.
If global finance migrates toward tokenized liquidity, programmable settlement, and interoperable central bank frameworks, then a neutral bridge asset with proven settlement efficiency becomes structurally central.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨EUROPEAN BOND MARKET IS IMPLODING
🇫🇷 France's 10Y bond yield hits 4.16%, the highest since 2008.
🇩🇪 Germany's 10Y bond yield hits 3.31%, the highest since 2011.
🇵🇹 Portugal's 10Y bond yield hits 3.665%, the highest since 2023.
🇮🇹 Italy's 10Y bond yield hits 4.15%, the highest since 2024.
🇪🇸 Spain's 10Y bond yield hits 3.76%, the highest since 2024.
First Japan, then the US, and now Europe, the bond market is indicating a major global crisis is imminent.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
Bitcoin people are forgetting $BTC always revisits the 60 week moving average before it collapses.
Don't tell anyone 😉🤫
Bitcoin bulls are convinced the new $BTC upcycle has begun, but let me offer a counter argument.
What if "This time is different" ?
We're at the end of a 25 year bull market, entirely funded by QE and the yen carry trade; both of which appear to be close to collapsing.
What if bond yields are warning of a global liquidity shortage (Dollar shortage) like 1929.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
🚨 WARNING: SOMETHING VERY BAD JUST HAPPENED
Bitcoin has failed to break above $80K, and the final bull trap is officially over.
Everything is playing out exactly as I predicted.
The plan is simple:
$80K → $65K → $57K → $42K
Keep in mind:
I publicly called Bitcoin's $17K bottom in 2022 and the $126K top in 2025.
The next call will be posted here first.
Follow and turn notifications on.
Don't become exit liquidity.
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
Six years ago this month, Secured Finance began as a small hackathon project.
Last week, we announced our role in bringing the Japanese Government Bond repo lifecycle on-chain — with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, @digitalasset and Progmat, on @CantonNetwork.
Some personal context on why this matters.
The joint announcement by four MUFG group companies is more than another PoC. To me, it is Japan — home to one of the world's largest collateral pools — signaling that it is serious about on-chain finance.
Tokenization in Japan first took hold in primary markets: issuance and redemption. The next step is the secondary market: moving those assets, financing them, managing collateral and running the daily economics on-chain. That is where repo lives.
Secured Finance is responsible for implementing the lifecycle: trade agreement and recording, opening-leg DvP, in-life valuation and collateral management, and closing-leg settlement. Because this is a global market, our protocol is designed to conform to established repo market standards and ultimately connect with international liquidity.
Before founding Secured Finance, I structured and traded rates products at a global investment bank. Our team includes a trader with more than a decade of rates and FX experience at Goldman Sachs. Repo is the plumbing beneath the markets we worked in — and markets live in their daily motion: valuations, margin calls, collateral movements, unwinds and settlement, not only the instrument itself.
We are pouring everything we learned into encoding JGB repo into a protocol, alongside the institutions responsible for the market infrastructure itself.
What has struck me most in the industry-wide working group is the caliber of the people involved: sharp questions, fast responses, clear direction and a shared sense of purpose that crosses company lines. A market veteran with more than 30 years of experience told me he does not see this as a quick opportunity, but as the culmination of his professional life. I was deeply moved by that.
Years ago, I left traditional finance, moved overseas and learned software engineering because I believed these two worlds would eventually reconnect. Those paths are now converging.
For a startup to be entrusted with the lending protocol implementing this lifecycle is a rare opportunity and a serious responsibility.
Through the PoC, we will validate the design and move it toward production-grade institutional market infrastructure.
English release:medium.com/secured-finance/s…
Kevin O'₿rien retweeted
What stops this train?
The US government is now spending $3.8 billion on interest PER DAY.
By 2028, estimates show that the US will spend ~$5 billion per day on interest, more than any other category.
To put this into perspective, the US now spends $3.1 billion per day on Medicare and $2.5 billion per day on defense.
When the cost of your debt becomes your biggest outlay, you know something is broken.
Intervention by the US Treasury is only a short-term "solution."
