Is AI a Bubble or Strategic Mandate?

The Last Trade: Former Blackstone partner David Thayer explains why liquidity—not cycles—drives BTC, how AI and fiscal dominance are steering policy, why gold is leading, what Texas’ ETF buy signals, and how JPM’s new BTC note underscores spot over wrappers.

---

🔸 Connect with Onramp: The leader in resilient, fault-tolerant Multi-Institution Custody for secure, enduring bitcoin ownership.

👉 Inheritance & Trust Planning: https://onrampbitcoin.com/products/inheritance

👉 Institutional: https://onrampbitcoin.com/products/institutional

👉 Business: https://onrampbitcoin.com/products/business

📩 Schedule a briefing: https://onrampbitcoin.com/contact

🎙️ About This Episode

With David Thayer (ex-Blackstone), we reset after the pullback: the 5-year lens over daily noise; fiscal dominance and valuations in a broken fiat denominator; AI as a national-security project (energy, chips, compute) that backstops spending; and gold + BTC as “liquidity sponges.” We hit SLR tweaks and stablecoin rails as engineered demand for Treasuries, realistic quantum timelines, Texas’ first ETF allocation, JPM’s new IBIT-linked structured note (what it signals), and why “treasury companies” can’t outrun spot. We close on politicization risk—and how to keep bitcoin’s message human, bipartisan, and savings-focused.

The Last Trade: a weekly, bitcoin-native podcast covering the intersection of bitcoin, tech, & finance on a macro scale. Hosted by Jackson Mikalic, Michael Tanguma, & Brian Cubellis. Join us as we dive into what bitcoin means for how individuals & institutions save, invest, & propagate their purchasing power through time. It's not just another asset...in the digital age, it's The Last Trade that investors will ever need to make.

🧠 Chapters

00:00 – Intro to David Thayer, price check, 5-year lens

04:12 – Volatility as opportunity: Thanksgiving playbook

06:07 – AI “bubble” or policy mandate?

11:15 – National security, AI, and quantum risk

17:01 – Fiscal dominance: engineered Treasury demand

26:33 – Gold, China, and the U.S. Bitcoin edge

28:16 – Texas ETF buy & the sound money revival

38:27 – Bitcoin and politics: partisan risk

54:20 – JPM’s BTC note: structure and signal

1:02:28 – Treasury companies vs spot BTC

1:09:29 – Gratitude and the monetary revolution

💡 Subscribe & Stay Ahead

Get Onramp’s weekly Research & Analysis:

High-signal insights in bitcoin, macro, and custody.

📩 https://onrampbitcoin.com/research

Subscribe to Onramp Media for more:

🎧 The Last Trade | Final Settlement | Scarce Assets