The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

I am writing today’s dispatch from Prague Airport, on my way back to Blighty.What a splendid city Prague is, and what a lovely bunch the Czechs are.It feels like this is still very much a high-trust society. Twice I left my bag in public places – full of very nickable laptop, passport and other gubbins – and both times I came back to find my bag untouched, but safely put to one side. At night the city felt safe. It was very clean – I actually started looking out for litter and I couldn’t see any anywhere, whether in the centre or the suburbs, where I was staying. I always think litter – or lack thereof – is a good indicator of how much people really care about their surroundings, how loyal to and invested in their area they feel, and, indeed, how well brought up they are.The Czechs were lovely: polite, hard-working, respectful, full of ambition and drive, and good looking.The story is that Hitler went to university in Prague and loved the place that so much that, when the Nazis invaded in 1939, he ordered that the city should not be bombed but preserved. I heard the story last time I was here, and heard it again this time. But then I just fact-checked this story and apparently it is total rollocks - Hitler never went to university anywhere, nor did he visit Prague. Perhaps the city survived because the Czechs decided not put up any resistance, so the Nazis went unopposed, which meant they didn’t need to bomb anything.In any case, the city is preserved and you can feel the history as you stroll about the stunning centre. It makes you cry for all the cities that did get flattened in WWII and the memories that disappeared with them.The food was lovely. So was the beer. I even had a couple. All in all, travel, board and lodging cost half of what they do in London, I’d say, at a guess.Just as I did last time I was here, I came away enamoured with the place, feeling that I must come back soon.As for the conference itself, BTC Prague, there were a few GenXers and Boomers – including my new friends Larry Lepard (check out his book), James Lavish (check out his fund) and George Bodine (check out his art) – as well as myself – but 85%+ of attendees were under 50, I’d say, with a large chunk under 30.If you are young, starting out and wondering what to do, I would urge you to get involved with the Bitcoin movement. There are so many different ways to do so, depending on where your talents, skills or interests lie. You can be artist, scientist or journalist, engineer, entrepreneur, traveller or surfer-dude. It really doesn’t matter. You’ll find a path that suits you. It all feels so dynamic and full of opportunity. It’s brim full of doers. Everyone is so supportive. There is plenty of capital to invest. You can make quick progress.Another thing to note: there are a lot of extremely clever people in this movement. Average IQ levels in Bitcoin are, I’ve little doubt, much higher than you typically find elsewhere.Conversation, naturally, was dominated with talk of the bitcoin treasury companies, and the incredible price action we are seeing there. To use the baseball analogy, which innings of 9 are we in? I generally made the case that we are in perhaps 5 or 6, with Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) in 2020 having been innings one. Some of the old-timers - who, it has to be said, have missed this particular wave - dismissed it as the ICO or DEFI craze of this cycle. They may have a point.But James Van Straten, the bright young mind behind the transformation of Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN), told me in no uncertain terms that, as far as the UK is concerned, ball one of innings one has only just be thrown. There is £1.2 trillion of capital in UK pensions and ISAs and, thanks to the FCAs anti-bitcoin rulings, several years of pent-up demand. We shall see.What’s different between this and ICO/DeFi madness is that the bitcoin treasury companies are holding something real and strong, while the narrative is only just getting going.People were very kind about my presentation, and I got asked to do a second one the following day, which I hurriedly wrote. I’ll share both with you as soon as I get the vids, but my main arguments were:* With the changing nature of the global workforce, the rise of the gig and freelance worker, especially the digital nomad (billions of people will soon be on the move), demand for borderless money and portable wealth is inevitably going to grow.* Save strong currencies; spend weak ones.* By investing in bitcoin (the currency), you benefit from the cumulative, combined IQ of everyone involved in Bitcoin (the movement).* With such extraordinary potential, the risk is not so much owning bitcoin as not owning it.As you would expect from someone with my chequered past, I threw in lots of jokes as well.Join this amazing movement.But the main event was the Michael Saylor presentation on Saturday afternoon.My goodness me, the 60-year-old former aerospace engineer has become a rock star. He was mobbed. He stood there in the entrance hall, patiently smiling for 90 minutes, with a circle of people around him 10-deep, all wanting selfies. The frenzy did not relent, and eventually his bodyguards had to usher him away so he could prepare for his presentation.That same presentation will no doubt be doing the rounds on the internet over the next few days, and I urge you to watch it, but I will summarise his main points here.Saylor, his usual intense, charismatic self, first observed just how far bitcoin has come over the past 12 months. Up about 70%, it has, yet again, outperformed gold, bonds, stocks and real estate. The White House has said it wants to make the US the bitcoin capital of the world. The new US administration is extremely pro-bitcoin – he went through the key players one by one. With the ETFs and increasing institutional adoption, bitcoin is altogether more normalised and legit.He spoke about how he wished he had got involved in 2013, when he first heard about bitcoin, rather than in 2020, but he also made the point that bitcoin still only makes up less than 1% of global capital and that this share will inevitably grow. 99% of global capital doesn’t know about it yet and so, even buying now, you’re ahead of 99% of capital.Then he began to speak about where this growing monetary network is going. Bitcoin will continue to outperform stocks, gold, bonds and real estate, as it inevitably grows to occupy a larger slice of the global capital pie. Twenty-one years from now, it’s going to be $21 million a coin, he said. There is, therefore, an opportunity to change the destiny of your family for generations to come. You create the future, he said.To deal with the drawdowns and the crypto winters, be like a seasick sailor: keep your eyes on the horizon. On the bigger picture. Saylor outlined several strategies to grow your bitcoin position and showed how rich each would make you in 21 years. The lowest-risk method is to dollar cost average (DCA) – buy a set amount each month and each year. But to increase your gains, use leverage. Use it wisely of course: keep interest payments low, fixed and long duration. Otherwise, you risk debt servitude and will end up with nothing.The principle is to borrow weak currencies, which lose value, and use the money to buy the strongest currency of the lot, which will inevitably gain in value. The gains you make will be extraordinary.I urge you to watch the presentation when it comes out, as he details the different strategies – and then shows the different outcomes.Using:* DCA* Leverage* DCA + leverage* In the case of companies, issuing stock to buy bitcoin* Issuing stock and using DCA + leverageIt will turn you into a total bitcoin head, I guarantee.But that’s all for today.I’ll be back mid-week with more commentary. I’m attending Swen Lorenz’s Weird Sh1t Investing Conference on Tuesday so there will no doubt be lots of good ideas in there. I’ll also update you on my conversation the day before yesterday with Eric Semler, Chairman of bitcoin treasury company, Semlar Scientific (NASDQ:SMLR). Semlar has been eclipsed in performance by the (once) smallcap UK bitcoin treasury companies - Smarter Web Company (AQUIS:SWC), Consillium (AQIS:COIN) and Helium Ventures (AQUIS:HEV.PL), but it is lower risk and better value given it is trading at the actual value of its bitcoin holdings and looks set to enjoy a decent run should bitcoin catch a bid.If you enjoyed this article, please like, share - all that stuff. It helps.Until next time,DominicPS Here’s this week’s commentary in case you missed it:DisclaimerI am not regulated by the FCA or any other body as a financial advisor, so anything you read above does not constitute regulated financial advice. It is an expression of opinion only. Tech stocks are famously risky, , so please do your own due diligence and if in any doubt consult with a financial advisor. Markets go down as well as up. I do not know your personal financial circumstances, only you do, but never speculate with money you can’t afford to lose. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comI am travelling to the bitcoin conference in Prague this week - come say hi if you’re there - so you are likely to get a lot of bitcoin-related content over the next fortnight, as I re-indoctrinate myself.Indeed, we are talking bitcoin and gold today — and we start with this.The Bitcoin Treasury BoomUK-listed Coinsilium (AQUIS:COIN), as flagged last Sunday, is jumping on the bitcoin treasury bandwagon. It has risen over 600% in the 10 days since I covered it. It was 6p. Now it's over 40p. Its market cap it £135 million. It only owns 25 bitcoins. (Worth around £2 million).Nuts. But there you go.I have taken my original stake off the table. I’ll let the rest run, as I think it will. Its recently announced placement was four times oversubscribed.Bitcoin treasury companies are the new sh1tcoins. There will soon be more of them than there are sh1tcoins, the way things are going. It will probably all end in tears - for which we will have the FCA to thank, because it has outlawed investors from buying bitcoin ETFs and the like - but, while the music is playing, we dance. The other possibility, of course, is that productive companies follow the zombie company lead, at which point the entire corporate financial model changes. Every company becoms a bitcoin treasury company. I actually think there’s a good chance of this happening, and I’ll explain why in a moment.But let me just remind you — and myself — that owning a bitcoin treasury company is not the same as owning bitcoin. It’s a speculation, a substitute, but it’s not the same.(BTW I bought some bitcoin with Revolut the other day, and I found the process very simple - though I quickly sent the money to another, safer wallet. Strike and CoinCorner are other UK options.)The non-US bitcoin treasury plays are doing better than the US, which is interesting. Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Semler (NASDAQ:SMLR), for example, are not moving. (They will if bitcoin breaks to new highs above $110,000, as it is trying to do, but for now it’s all about the UK and Japan, and the dumb regulations that have created this situation).Gold Is Now Number TwoThis week has seen something of a landmark development, meanwhile. Gold has overtaken the euro to become the second-most held asset by central banks. 20% of central bank reserves are now held in gold, against 16% in euros.Also of considerable note — and largely unreported — US dollar holdings have fallen below 50% for the first time in almost 30 years. They now sit at 46%. De-dollarisation is happening, folks, right in front of our eyes.If you are enjoying this post, please like it, share it and all that stuff. Thank you.This 20% gold figure compares with just 10% ten years ago. I’ve little doubt this will double again over the next 10 years - and we’ll be at 40%.Even ECB Chief Lizard, Christine Lagarde, has noticed. “The accumulation of gold by central banks continued at a record pace,” she says. “Some countries have been actively exploring alternatives to traditional cross-border payment systems.”That last sentence is telling. It further confirms what we all knew was happening. It’s not just as a store of value that the US dollar’s central role is subsiding, but as a medium of exchange.Gold is reclaiming its historical role as a core international holding. Make sure you own some.If you are buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times, the dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.In the same press release Lagarde says:“Offering solutions for settling wholesale financial transactions recorded on distributed ledger technology platforms in central bank money will increase the efficiency of European financial markets and the global appeal of the euro.”That’s reptilian speak for “the euro CBDC is coming soon”. The EU CBDC Beast could begin as soon as this year. It will be rolled out first at the institutional level. Then it will be forced on the minions (which I don’t think will work, by the way, for reasons explained [here] — but that doesn’t mean they won’t try).Turning to what might prove the Big Kahuna.The Real Crisis: Government Spending Can’t StopWe have another rapidly developing plotline, and this announcement was widely overlooked by the press - probably on government orders, but perhaps because, as Occam’s Razor would have it, they’re thick. It is, in my view, a highly significant development, and is going to open the door to a ton of money-printing.

I have a friend — we’ll call him Steve. Steve’s a comedian — a very good one. He started around the same time as me, maybe a bit later. Back in the day, we all thought Steve was going to be a huge star. If there were any justice in the world, he would have been. But there isn’t. We all know that. Steve ended up one of those many jobbing, circuit comedians, with a brilliant act — good enough to storm pretty much any room under any circumstances — but who never seemed to get beyond the circuit. There are plenty of unknown, but brilliant acts like Steve, believe me.Maybe he didn’t have the right mindset — I don’t know. If you want my opinion, I think he over-thought things. But what do I know?Steve was always interested in investing and, in his spare time (comedians have plenty of that) he began speculating with his earnings. Steve liked to do things properly, and investing was no different. He studied hard, researched, read loads, watched videos, listened to podcasts, scrutinised company reports and accounts, evaluated the fundamentals. He did everything you’re supposed to do.It didn’t work out. Steve lost money. Consistently. Bad choices dogged him.As Covid took hold in 2020, Steve took stock of his 20 years on the circuit. Where was he was in life? What he had achieved?Just as he never broke out of the circuit, Steve had never broken into the higher tax bracket either. Despite scrupulous and honest accounting, he had never once made it beyond the basic band. He had no property — which, for a man closing in on 50, was unimpressive. He had very little in the way of savings, even though he was frugal. No pension. The comedy circuit was already in recession. Now Covid had shut it down. Things were looking bleak.Then Steve started watching Michael Saylor videos.Michael Saylor is the billionaire genius Chairman of Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) who, amidst all the money printing during Covid, was trying to protect his corporate treasury from erosion by inflation. This led him to bitcoin, which he embraced. He became one of its most articulate proponents, while his company — which had been all but dormant, share-price-wise, for 20 years — suddenly took off like a rocket. He gave birth to the bitcoin treasury model that is becoming so widespread today.Everything Saylor said made sense to Steve. Not only that — it chimed with him. Bitcoin is stored energy. Investing in bitcoin is like buying Apple, Amazon, Google, or Facebook a decade ago. They’re all dominant technology networks, so destined to grow. The more you obsess over timing the market, the more mistakes you make. The best strategy is to buy bitcoin and wait. It will have a market cap in the multi-trillions. All that stuff.Steve had known about bitcoin for many years. But he never invested. He bought shares in Lloyds instead.He changed tack. He decided he was going to do for himself what Saylor had done for Strategy.He began buying bitcoin with any spare cash he had. In his ISA, he bought Strategy.He started bitcoin wallets for his nephews, nieces, and godchildren and bought them small amounts of bitcoin on their birthdays and at Christmas.Something unlikely happened: Steve’s investments started going up.By now he was obsessing over Michael Saylor videos. Watching and rewatching them. Finding old interviews and presentations and marvelling at the consistency of message — and Saylor’s extraordinary gift for spotting and riding technological trends.“There’s not a single interview that man has done that I haven’t watched,” Steve told me the other day.Steve sold every stock he owned. He couldn’t buy bitcoin through his broker — thanks, FCA — so he bought Strategy instead, then other bitcoin treasury companies, last year, including the amazing Metaplanet.Meanwhile, everything he earned he sent straight to an exchange and converted to bitcoin. Only the bare essentials he needed to cover that month’s bills did he keep in fiat. Steve turned his entire personal operation into a bitcoin treasury.What’s more, he didn’t told anyone he’d done this. Except with me — because he knows I know and love bitcoin.He doesn’t mind when bitcoin sells off — it just means he can buy more on the cheap. He thinks it is inevitable — because of its superior technology — that bitcoin becomes the world’s dominant money system. That individuals, corporations and countries will store their capital in bitcoin, rather than fiat, so they do not suffer erosion by inflation (which is inevitable, because governments everywhere are incapable of reining in their spending — even with Elon Musk in charge).He just keeps on accumulating, keeps on watching Saylor vids, and keeps on keeping his head down.There are lots of people like Steve. I read about them every day. I just met a load out here at Freedom Fest in California.I’m headed to BTC Prague next week. I know I’ll meet a load more there. (If you’re in Prague, by the way, come say hi. And if you’re thinking of going, you can get 10% off tickets using code FRISBY)I’ve said it before and I say it again, if you save in strong currencies, and spend in weak ones, you will change your social status — you don’t have to earn a lot of money to do thatI saw Steve the other day. I’ve never seen him happier (except after he’s just stormed a gig). Guess what? He’s now in a position, just four years later, where he can buy a house. That’s what his girlfriend wants him to do. How about that for a transformation.You really should subscribe to this amazing publication.Only problem is: that would mean selling some of his bitcoin.If only there were vehicles by which you could borrow against your bitcoin … That’s the next chapter in this extraordinary story: borrow against your bitcoin, spend in fiat, keep the asset. Trouble is, if you’re in the UK — you won’t be able to. Because FCAThanks very much for reading this. If you enjoyed it, please like, share - all that stuff - it helps.Until next time,DominicPS Don’t forget my brilliant book about bitcoin, if you want to learn more about the space. I hear the audiobook is very good indeed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comGreetings to you from Palm Springs, California,Something most unusual is happening in financial markets, the like of which I haven’t seen for years.Junior mining companies are behaving well.Silver is going up. Platinum is going up.It feels like a proper bull market.These things have been utter dogs for years. So cripes — is this overdue or what. It had reached the point where I never thought I’d see a bull market in these things again in my lifetime.It’s worth noting that this phenomenon seems largely confined to precious metals.The base metals are not seeing the same price action.By way of reference, here is platinum. It has gone off like a rocket. Almost 40% in two months.And long-time readers who held onto platinum pick Tharisa (THS.L) are starting to see that come back to life, thank goodness.Typically, you would expect to see platinum trading at 1.25 times the gold price — $4,000/oz in other words. At the moment it’s $1,250, so there is plenty of future potential in that particular market.Silver, meanwhile, if it can get above $37, where there is some historical resistance, I think goes back to $50.Here’s the long-term silver chart, which is looking remarkably symmetrical. We’re butted up against resistance now, as you can see. After that the next line is at $44 — but if it gets to $44, I think it goes to $50.If that happens, those who hold silver miners — particularly my favourite junior producer — are going to make a lot of money. 🙂But, as I say, this is, for now, a precious metals thing. Copper doesn’t look too bad, but zinc, tin, lead, iron ore — they’re all either flat or falling.If you are buying gold or silver, the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.Gold, meanwhile, is consolidating above $3,300/oz, while the miners and other precious metals play catch up.How about that for a chart. Talk about trend!Let’s take a closer look at my two largest holdings.I think both these junior gold plays are buys by the way, one of them in particular.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comLet me quickly flag three things: * There is a short note at the end of this piece on the subject of bitcoin treasury companies, which I know is of interest to some of you. * We now have a video version of last week’s thought piece about the housing market. * I am in Palm Springs, California, all next week. If any readers from that neck of the woods fancy meeting up, I’ll be performing at the Punching Up Comedy Night with Adam Carolla, Thai Rivera and Lou Perez, and also doing various panels at Freedom Fest on gold and bitcoin. You should be able to find me via this QR code. Or send me an email or message.Right, gold … today we ask: Should you invest in gold collectibles?The gold at the Museo del Oro in Bogotá, Colombia, is one of the most stunning collections you will ever see – diadems, helmets and crowns, rings, necklaces and bracelets, beads and breastplates, even fishhooks and penis covers. The smiths of ancient South and Central America were quite brilliant artisans. The Spaniards who saw their work said Aztec goldsmiths were more skilled than their European counterparts.In Mexico, the conquistadors found life-size figures of men and women, great jars and pitchers, half pottery-half gold vases sculpted in relief with birds, animals and insects, and more. In Peru and Ecuador, the conquistadors found miniature gardens made of gold – earth of gold granules, gold cornstalks, and gold figures of men and llamas.Unfortunately, what sits in the Museo del Oro is just a fraction of what was made. The Spaniards valued bullion on weight alone, ascribing no value to art, beauty or workmanship. Most got melted down before being sent home. What they sent to their king intact got melted down once back in Europe. “What was being destroyed was more perfect than anything they enjoyed and possessed,” said a young priest travelling with the conquistador Francisco Pizarro.The conquistadors were by no means alone in this. It has happened repeatedly through history. Though gold may last, art made from gold rarely does. People always seem to melt it down. That should mean ancient gold workings should command an even higher premium for their antiquity, because they have survived the meltdown risk. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem to work like that.You can’t destroy gold, as I’m sure you know. It lasts forever and never loses its shine. It was present in the dust that formed the solar system, and sits in the Earth’s crust today, just as it did when our planet was formed some 4.6 billion years ago.That means that little bit of gold you may be wearing on your finger or around your neck is actually older than the Earth itself. In fact, it is older than the solar system. Who knows? It might once have adorned a pharaoh or sat in a conquistador’s treasure chest. Gold may be antique, but it’s very rare that you get vast premiums for its antique value.Buying gold or silver? The dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.The gold coinage that never wasIf you buy a gold sovereign minted recently, you would typically pay £600 to £630. For a Victorian sovereign minted 150 years ago or more – which has the same gold content – you would pay £660 to £680. So, for all that history and antique value, you pay just 10%. Sovereigns are not uncommon. A billion are thought to have been struck. So you get little rarity value. But even so, you’d think you would get more of a premium.The main exception is the 1937 sovereign struck for Edward VIII. Since he abdicated a few weeks before the coins were struck, they were never circulated. They are often called the “coinage that never was”, and only a few were ever minted. One sold in 2020 for £1 million. That’s quite the premium. But this is rare.About ten years ago, I picked up a Justinian solidus, minted in 600AD – the solidus was the dominant coin of the Mediterranean after the Roman aureus. I got it for a 20% premium to the spot value of the metal. And I bought it from a shop in W1, so I was paying the Mayfair premium too.An ingot recovered from the SS Central America, which famously sank off the Carolina coast in 1857 carrying Californian gold to New York (and triggered a financial panic because so much bullion was lost), recently went up for auction. It weighed 649 ounces, but it was only 21-carat gold (.875 purity). If melted down, you would have 568 ounces of pure gold, which, at today’s price of $3,300 per ounce, would have a spot value of $1.9 million. It sold for $2.1 million, including the buyer’s premium – little more than the spot value, in other words.Antique gold very rarely catches the huge premium you might think it deserves. Beware graded coinsUnscrupulous coin dealers will often try to flog you graded coins. If a dealer tells you that some recent sovereign, for example, is extremely rare, that it was one of the last coins minted under Queen Elizabeth II, or some such, and that it has been graded and has a special certificate and blah blah... and it therefore carries a huge premium, they are trying to pull a sly one.The reality is that the extra premium paid is almost impossible to claw back when you come to sell. In almost all cases, they are trying to rip you off. Don’t pay a premium for graded coins.A dealer might buy a large stock of coins from the Royal Mint. Coins are often of a slightly different quality. Dealers then send them off and pay a small fee to get them graded according to their “Mint State”. The scale ranges from MS-60 to MS-70, with MS-70 being a perfect, flawless coin. They then charge a large premium for coins with high grades, even though they barely paid any premium when they bought the coins.The margins when dealing in gold are on the slim side – sometimes just a few percent. But if they get an additional premium for the rarity, that margin can rise to 100%. No wonder there are so many unscrupulous salesman trying to flog graded coins.Fractional coins – quarter or half sovereigns, for example – or older coins do trade at a higher (though not enormous) premium. These can trade for 15 - 20% above the spot value of the gold content. But you are likely to get that back when you sell.You are not buying gold to try and be clever and hope that your coin gets some kind of rarity value. In most cases, that will not happen. There are clever people who know this market better than you already playing this game. Don’t get involved is my advice. Your priority is to get as much gold for your money as possible. You are buying gold to preserve purchasing power, not to lose it.This article was first published in MoneyWeek's magazine. Some developments in the bitcoin treasury company story - a new kid on the block

Enjoyed this vid? Then please like, share and all that stuff. It helps!If you want to read the original article on which this video is based, hee it is.Subscribe to this amazing publication, why don’t you?.If you are thinking of buying silver or gold bullion to protect yourself in these ‘interesting’ times - and I recommend you do - the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.Join my new WhatsApp channel This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

If you enjoy this article. Please like it, share it and so on. It all helps. I thank you.It’s time for my annual slagging off of silver. Why now?Because, according to one of my WhatsApp chats, it’s breaking out.Silver is always breaking out. It never actually does.Was ever there a metal with as much potential as silver? Probably not.Was ever there a metal you could so wholly depend on to let you down? If there is, I’m not aware of it (though these past 15 years, platinum has been running it close).But maybe, just maybe this time is different.Really?Let’s start with a bit of gossip from the front line.I have three mates who are CEOs of silver mining companies, as you do. All three of them, based in Latin America, have reported back with the same story.Typically, a miner would pay a company — usually a refiner — to take ore off their hands, treat and smelt it, so it can be sold. So-called off-take agreements would usually amount to $120–180 per tonne of ore. But, at the moment, refiners aren’t charging anything. Somebody is subsidising it all.Could it be that humongous, commodity-guzzling nation that begins with a C, I wonder?It wants silver for all those solar panels Ed Miliband is buying.The way things are behaving and moving at the moment, it’s starting to feel like we are moving into a proper commodities bull market. Maybe 2021–22 was just the appetizer.Stop! Don’t get excited. It’s silver we’re talking about here.The case for silver runs roughly as follows:We are in an age of currency debasement, therefore you want to own hard assets. In such an inflationary environment, the monetary metals — gold and silver — perform best. Silver has been money since forever. It is natural money etc etc.Let’s just address that before we move on.Gold is still used as money in the store-of-value sense of the word. National banks keep it. Institutions keep it. Individuals keep it. Gold’s role was always more store of value than medium of exchange. Historically, we used silver, copper and nickel for all but high-value transactions.Silver was not used as a store of value to the extent gold was. Its function was more, as I say, as a medium of exchange. That role has long gone. The gold rushes of the 19th century did for silver.Long story — it’s in my book, which comes out in August — but to cut it short, the vast increase in gold supply enabled nations to abandon silver. In the case of the US, it was the Coinage Act of 1873 — or as silver bugs like to call it, the Crime of ’73 — that began the end of silver as official money. In the UK — largely thanks to the Portuguese discoveries of gold in Minas Gerais (again, long story, it’s in the book) — the process began a good 150 years earlier.In these cashless times, there is little chance of silver regaining its role as medium of exchange.As a result, looking at gold-to-silver ratios — it now takes about 100 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold — and saying we are going back to the historical average of 12 or 15:1 is mistaken. There may well only be 15 times as much silver in the Earth’s crust as gold (making 15:1 the natural ratio) but without its role as money, this is just not going to happen. Not for any prolonged period.In the last 100 years, we have only touched this level once — Thursday, March 27, 1980. Uncommon circumstances. Two brothers were trying to corner the silver market.Silver’s role as money is as good as over. Silver bugs hate me when I say that. But I can only say it like I see it.Physical silver in your possession is nobody else’s liability — I get that — and it is outside of the financial system — I get that too. There are many reasons to invest in silver. I own physical silver. But expecting it to be monetised again should not be one of them.If you are thinking of buying silver or gold bullion, the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here.If Armageddon comes, you’ll be glad you own silver — maybe — but there will be bigger problems on your plate. Like Armageddon.Everywhere silverSilver has widespread industrial use, especially in these times of mass electrification. You could write a book about the industrial uses of silver, there are so many. It might not be a very good book, but it would be long.From medical equipment to electrical appliances, it’s almost harder to find things that don’t contain silver than things that do. Every smartphone has silver in it; every computer; every jet engine; every solar panel. The best batteries contain silver. It’s used in detergent, deodorant, wart treatment, antimicrobial lab coats, 3D printing, plastics, jewellery, wood preservation, water purification — it’s like a picks-and-shovels play on new tech and the growing middle class of the developing world.Annual silver demand stands at around 1.2 billion ounces. Roughly 60% of that demand — 700 million ounces — comes from industry (500 million from electrical and electronics, half of which is solar panels); 22% from jewellery and silverware; and 18% from investment.Annual supply is about one billion ounces (80% mining, 20% recycling) — so the market is in deficit. Hence the current rising price.Most silver is produced as a bi-product of other mines, especially lead and zinc (eg at one point BHP Billiton was the world’s largest silver producer).There is, however, a romance to silver. It catches the public imagination — occasionally with explosive results. It did in 1980 when it went to $50 (it had been $2 just a few years earlier). It did again in 2011 when it revisited $50 before collapsing. It nearly took off during Lockdown Meme Mania, but didn’t quite get going.As a result of this romance, it has a tendency to go bananas every few years — but it never lasts. Does romance? Sometimes, if you’re lucky.There is also the issue of silver price suppression, which some use to explain every sell-off in the silver markets. There’s nothing any of us can do about that — even if true — so let’s not go there.Silver will at some point revisit $50. At some other point it will get above that figure. The mother of all narratives will take hold, and silver will probably end up going to $100 or even $200.At which point you want to be owning silver stocks …It will also, at some point, revisit $15. That’s when you don’t want to be owning silver stocks.Here is 100 years of silver prices. If you give any credence to such things, there is the mother of all cup-and-handle formations appearing (that’s a super bullish pattern), which I have drawn in blue. It projects prices towards the $100/oz mark.It’s also apparent on the 50-year chart. (I haven’t drawn it here - I’ll let you visualise).Silver has been in a bull market since summer 2022, but it has, broadly speaking, followed rather than led gold. It’s now come up against a wall at around $35.You could say it’s a triple top.Then again, the more times you test a level, the less likely it is to hold — particularly when each low is higher than the last, as is the case here.But these last few weeks, all of a sudden, silver is leading gold.What’s more, silver miners are leading silver. That’s what makes me bullish.Here is the silver miners’ ETF, SIL (NYSE: SIL) — and you can see, just as they’re saying in my WhatsApp chats — the silver miners really have broken out.I haven’t seen this in a long time. Miners leading!!!!! WTF?This is why I’m saying it’s starting to feel like a proper metals bull market.So how am I playing this?What are the best ways to invest in silver and profit? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Please do not share, copy, reproduce or distribute any part of this report without my express permission. Thank you.Many thanks to all the new subscribers who have joined this week, both paid and unpaid. I put this video of my recent North Sea Oil piece up on YouTube, X et al and it generated something of a flurry.So welcome. I hope you both enjoy and benefit from The Flying Frisby.Before we get started I just wanted to note that Comstock Lode seems to be catching a nice tail wind, which is good. Enjoy the ride. The AGM is later today for the keener of you out there.But we are looking at bitcoin today, and exploring an alternative way to invest in it.I’m going through one of those phases where I feel like I don’t own enough bitcoin.So I’ve bought more.And I’ve bought it in my SIPP - UK-speak for my retirement account.I’ll explain how in a second.Let’s just have a quick look at the bitcoin price, and note that we are once again breaking out to new highs.I know it feels like you are late to the bitcoin story, and yes we all wish we bought it at $10, when we first heard about it. But we didn’t. We are where we are, and this story is a long way from being over.The next chapter in the odyssey is corporate adoption, and that story is just getting started.I explained the bitcoin corporate treasury model a fortnight ago here, and I’ve made the article freely available to all, so please take a look, but the TLDR is this.Following a template set by billionaire genius Michael Saylor, more and more companies are converting their treasuries to bitcoin as a means to store value and escape currency debasement. Not only that, they are issuing paper—stock, debt, convertible notes—and using the capital raised to buy more bitcoin. In effect, they are creating fiat money from nothing—it is a debt-based system, after all—and using it to buy a finite digital resource (one that, of course, cannot be created through debt).Many are scratching their heads and saying, “How can this be? It’s not possible! It’s a bubble.”What Saylor is actually doing, among other things, is exposing the flaws of debt-based fiat currency. There are now some 70 companies employing this strategy. This will eventually be a stampede, which I urge you to front-run. Corporations have much deeper pockets than private investors, meaning this latest cycle in bitcoin’s mass adoption could become a mega mania.Shareholders welcome dilution if it means more bitcoin. The problem of corporate dilution has been flipped on its head. Once, if a company issued 20% more stock, you would expect the stock to fall by a concomitant amount to reflect the dilution. But if you’re using paper to buy bitcoin, the reverse applies. You can’t dilute enough. The purpose of a bitcoin treasury company is to acquire as much bitcoin as possible on behalf of all shareholders, by whatever means.Here is a case in point.Japanese hotel company Metaplanet (3350:TYO) had a small chain of low-budget hotels across Southeast Asia. Covid decimated the business, and it never fully recovered.A year ago, seeking a new direction, CEO Simon Gerovich began copying the Saylor model and started using his cash flow to buy bitcoin, then he began issuing debt. Since spring 2024, when the company began its strategy, the stock has risen thousands of percent from below ¥20 to north of ¥1,000. Last year, it was one of the best-performing companies in the world, if not the best. How about this for a chart?In the time that bitcoin has risen 60%, Metaplanet has risen more than 7,000%. (Saylor’s Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) has also outperformed bitcoin. Bitcoin treasury companies give you gearing).With its crap currency and suppressed bond yields, bitcoin is an obvious place for Japanese investors to put their capital, except the government has got in the way.As with the UK, dumb regulations make it very hard for Japanese investors to buy bitcoin directly. (This came as a result of Mt. Gox, the first bitcoin exchange, which went bust after being hacked in 2013-14). To give you an idea how ponderous things are, to register with a bitcoin exchange in Japan , regulators demand you get a letter by snail mail to verify your address. Nuts.What’s more, when the Japanese sell, they must pay capital gains tax at 55%.But Metaplanet is a Tokyo-listed company, so investors are buying that instead in their retirement accounts and via their brokers. Far less hassle. Just as, back in 2023, I urged UK readers to buy Strategy as a way to play bitcoin (we are up around 1,000%), Metaplanet has become Japan’s bitcoin vehicle—indeed, much of Asia’s.For several days in a row, the company has gone limit-up, and trading has been halted. The mother of all short squeezes seems to be taking place. It’s the most shorted stock in all of Japan - and the short sellers are struggling to cover.This bubble has, quite literally, been caused by state regulation. We wouldn’t be in this situation if it was easy to buy bitcoin. It’s enough to make you a libertarian. It’s amazing that both Japan and the UK were at the vanguard in bitcoin’s early days. Satoshi Nakamoto had a Japanese name and used British English. Now we are both retarded (in both the old sense of the word and the new).How to profit from the maniaIn the UK, Avis-listed The Smarter Web Company (ISIN: GB00BPJHZ015) is now following suit, as several readers have pointed out to me (thank you). It’s gone from 5p to 45p in a month. Currently, The Smarter Web Company has a market cap of £72 million, while it holds only £3 million in bitcoin (rounded numbers). Insane, you might think. Probably.Bitcoin Treasury Companies are outperforming bitcoin. They are the new sh*tcoins. So which bitcoin treasury company have I gone for?Here is how I am playing all this. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

There is also now a video version of this article, if you prefer, here:I’ve been viewing houses this past fortnight, so I thought I’d share my anecdotal 2p on the state of the London property market.I’m looking in Brockley, SE4, which, if you don’t know it, used to be rough AF, but is now where all the cool kids are. The area has benefited from the various London rail line extensions – you can be in Shoreditch or Canary Wharf in 15 minutes; the Jubilee and Elizabeth lines are a similarly short step away – and that has attracted the slay crew to the area. The road links though are still horrendous though, made worse by 20mph speed limits and bus lane misallocation of essential road space. The drive to west London is interminable.Brockley has a good stock of beautiful detached, semi-detached and terraced Victorian houses. For example: With its proximity to Greenwich and the river docks, it was once a wealthy area, though, like most of south-east London, it got bombed to heck in the war.There are plenty of nice parks too. One of them, Hilly Fields, was modelled on Hampstead Heath, and there are many gorgeous houses in the roads running off it. Not quite Hampstead gorgeous, but getting there.Brockley also has the highest density of cemeteries in London, if you fancy dying any time soon, it’s highly convenient. It is, I gather, London’s most haunted area.It is only a bit stabby. Nothing like as bad as neighbouring Lewisham. (Maybe “only a bit stabby” will one day become part of estate agents’ jargon, perhaps to replace “vibrant”. I can’t believe how normalised stabbing now is that I’m talking like that.)The stabbiness is offset, however, by the plethora of nice restaurants, cafés, bars, craft ale breweries, the farmers’ market, mini-festivals, pilates studios et al. I understand, in Browns, the area boasts London’s best coffee and, in Babur, its best Indian restaurant. (Technically Babur is in Honor Oak, but, like England and many of its foreign sporting greats, we’ll claim it as our own.)I shot this vid from the steps up to the station.Brockley feels younger and more up-and-coming than the once-cool areas to the west like Queen’s Park, Kensal Rise, Clapham and so on, probably because of its easy access to east London. (A lot of people from Hackney move down here.)I moved here begrudgingly and skint in 2015 and have grown to really like it.But what about the housing market?I’ve known markets in which estate agents don’t give you the time of day, there are so many prospective buyers, but – perhaps because they know I am an unencumbered buyer – the agents are maybe not quite all over me, but certainly on my case: lots of emails, phone calls and the rest of it. That indicates it’s more of a buyers’ market.But, while I would describe the housing market here as slow, it is not dead. Stuff has been going under offer in the two weeks I’ve been looking, though rarely at asking.With the costs of moving – Stamp Duty is 10% above £925k, and 12% above £1.5m, plus an extra 5% if you own another property – buyers have got to really want to buy.Sellers, meanwhile, have to really want to sell, which often entails reducing their asking prices. Stuff which is unrealistically priced is staying on the market a long time. Look at this one (actually up the road in Honor Oak):This is a 5,000-square-foot property, not so nice inside, but with access to a 2-acre private garden behind with its own tennis court – quite something in London. From £2.5 million to £1.75 million and they still can’t shift it. (It needs a lot of money spending on it.)On the other hand, there don’t seem to be many forced sellers – people who can’t make their payments – and we won’t get any house price crash, long-awaited or not, until that is a reality.I imagine Brockley, as a young, trendy area, is busier than other parts of town, but that is my overall feel: slow, but not dead.I’ve looked at a few family houses. I can’t really comment on flats, but I gather there is an oversupply of 2-bed flats across London, and it is really hard to shift them. I’m not sure if this applies to Brockley or not.It doesn’t feel as expensive as it did around 2019–2022 (realised sales prices are a fraction lower, but there is obviously currency debasement to consider too), but nor does it feel super cheap. We’re a long way off where we were in, say, 2013, even though grander parts of London – Kensington and Chelsea, for example – are back at those 2013 levels.Where does the housing market go from here? It all depends on two things: interest rates and Stamp Duty.Britain’s zombie housing market, brought to you by Stamp Duty.If rates go lower, the market will not collapse. There won’t be the forced sellers. We’ll continue as we are: stagnant. If rates go higher, the market is in trouble.But get rid of Stamp Duty, and you’d have a flurry of activity across the country tomorrow. People aren’t moving because of the amount of dead money involved. Stamp Duty has immobilised the country.If you’re buying a two-million-pound house, you will pay £153,750 in stamp duty. Cash. Money you’ve already paid tax on once. You can’t borrow the money. You have to be extremely rich, or extremely desperate for a home, to be willing to pay a £150k one-off tax of this kind. Most would rather avoid paying it, so they don’t move.You will pay more if you are not a UK resident.If you happen to own another property – which most people in that wealth bracket will, either their first flat they never sold, a property they inherited, or a home in the country – and the house you are buying is not your main residence, the tax rises to £253,750. A quarter of a million quid.That’s why houses in Kensington and Chelsea no longer sell. EDIT: My mate, whose kids have now flown the nest, sent me this: "We live in a 4 floor house, 2 floors we don't use, I haven't been to the top floor for about 5 years (seriously). We would love to move and downsize but makes no sense as the costs of buying a new house would use up all the gain on downsizing . IE We just end up with a smaller house."This happens all the way down the scale. Kirstie Whatsit off the telly was tweeting about it the other day.My mother’s friend, who is in her 70s, lives in a 2-bed flat two floors up in Wandsworth worth maybe £700,000. She is worried about climbing the stairs at her age, and wants to move to another 2-bed flat. She will pay £25,000 in Stamp Duty on top of all her other moving costs. She doesn’t have 25 grand to throw away.The result is this nearly dead market. Britain’s zombie housing market.Stamp Duties were one of the taxes the ignited the American Revolution. If only we had muskets today …The biggest villains in all this are former Chancellor Gordon Brown for first raising Stamp Duty on property transactions (before him it just one per cent on all properties over £60,000), and, worst of all, George Osborne for raising the rates to today’s ludicrous levels. Rather than address the root causes of unaffordable housing – fiat money, artificially low interest rates, improper measures of inflation and dumb planning laws – he blamed the market, and attacked it with Stamp Duty. But all of Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Philip Hammond and Alistair Darling must take their share of the blame for failing to do anything about it, when they had the chance. (We’ll give Kwasi Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi a pass on the grounds they didn’t have the gig for long enough).Osborne, Brown et al have given birth to the zombie situation we have now. They have immobilised the country in the process. Government. Yet again. 0 stars. Would not use again.It’s enough to make you a libertarian. Until next time,DominicPS If you enjoyed today’s article, please like, share and all that stuff. It really helps.PPS If you missed this week’s market commentary, here it is:As always If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these times or relentless currency debasement, the bullion dealer I use and recommend is the Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. Find out more here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comI’ve had a flood of new readers sign up to the Flying Frisby this week, I’m delighted to report, largely as a result of this article on bitcoin treasury companies and of this video on North Sea oil and the next Labour U-turn, which has been doing the rounds on the net.So welcome everyone. I hope you enjoy the ride.Today’s piece is going to be a bit of a hotchpotch, as I gather my thoughts and tidy up a few loose ends.We’ll start with the macro. Are we in a bull market? Are the animal spirits back in command? Or have we just gone through a bear market rally?It all depends on tariffs, I guess, and what is going on in the Great Orange Man’s mind. What plans does he have? That I cannot answer, but I will say the S&P500 looks like it might have just put in a lower high.We want to be above that blue line.If he goes full tariff again, all bets - well most - are off.But thanks to the Great Orange Man’s pronouncements on uranium, our speculation Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR) is now enjoying another of its spikes. If he goes full tariff again, all bets - well most - are off.But thanks to the Great Orange Man’s pronouncements on uranium, our speculation Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR) is now enjoying another of its spikes.Sell the spikes, buy the dips has been the play here. We are on one such spike now, so if the recent pattern continues (it won’t continue forever, nothing does, but it might for a bit) then lighten up between $15 and $20 and buy if it goes back to $9 is the trade.Sell the spikes, buy the dips has been the play here. We are on one such spike now, so if the recent pattern continues (it won’t continue forever, nothing does, but it might for a bit) then lighten up between $15 and $20 and buy if it goes back to $9 is the trade.We have quite a well defined, trade-able range emerging here, as defined by the blue lines below.I don’t see it going back to the $2.50-$3 area, where we were lucky enough to first stumble upon this stock, but $8.50-9 looks like the new floor. For now.Remember: this was an $800 stock once upon a time, so there is a lot of upside left. One should probably keep some money on the table, in case we don’t get the dip.Tell your friends.The next Starmer U-turnTurning next to the issue of the re-opening of the North Sea. Since posting that video our Glorious Leader has tightened ties with the EU, and in particular relevance here, its net zero goals. The UK now commits to net zero obligations “at least as ambitious as the EU”. “Want to get out of net zero?,” says Lord Frost in the Telegraph, “Tough: you can’t, unless the EU agrees”.That said I am sure Captain FlipFlop will find a way of flipflopping his way round any North Sea ties and then spinning it. There is a review this week. Surely even this government will realise importing Norwegian gas for (net) zero tax take, fewer jobs and a higher carbon footprint than producing our own makes (net) zero sense. More importantly it is gifting Reform. Maybe the needs of the Treasury mean Milibrain - Miliband gets overruled. We will know more as soon as today.Adding another bitcoin treasury company to my portfolioIn a moment, I am going to take a look at Comstock Lode (NYSE:LODE), further to its AGM this week. I know I keep talking about this company, but it might be the one we all retire on - hence my outsized attention.But first I also want to continue on the bitcoin treasury company story.(Despite the outperformance of the treasury companies of late, I still prefer bitcoin and think it should be a core holding. The treasury companies are rather more speculative. However, given the hassle involved, I understand why some in the UK prefer the treasury companies).How about this for nuts? The UK’s Smarter Web Company (ISIN: GB00BPJHZ015) hit a market cap of £175 million yesterday. Its assets: it has about £5 million in bitcoin.The dude who founded it, Andrew Webley, was a month ago running a web design firm in Guildford with net assets of less than £50,000. In the company's Retail Investor IPO document, he committed to invest a minimum of £30,000...through his ISA”. (h/t Glen Goodman)This will not end well. And we have the FCA to thank. It has made it so difficult to buy bitcoin, investors are buying this company and others like it instead.If, like many readers, you are playing this one, make sure you get your original investment out, is my advice …Meanwhile, Metaplanet (3350:TYO) briefly lost a third of its value last week, falling below ¥800. Now it’s above ¥1,200, at all-time highs, trading at 450% of the value of its bitcoin.It’s a mania all right.I’m adding another position, in a stock which has some recent history of manias.What is it? Ah-ha …