Folgen

  • System Update: Extremes Are Not the Majority

    System Update: Extremes Are Not the Majority
    Jan 9 2026
    System Update: Extremes Are Not the MajorityThere is a fundamental lie embedded in modern political, cultural, and economic discourse:That the extremes represent the whole.They don’t.Extremists are extremists.They are not Muslims.They are not Americans.They are not progressives or conservatives as a whole.Calling the extreme edge representative of the majority is the oldest trick in the book—and it works because it is useful to power.Extremes Are Useful. Consensus Is Dangerous.The majority, by definition, does not like extremes.If a population realizes it agrees on 95% of priorities, then the debate shifts away from the problem and toward the solution. That is an existential threat to entrenched power.Because once people understand that there are more of us than them, control becomes fragile.So the illusion must be maintained:* That half the country is radical* That the other half is irredeemable* That compromise is impossibleAs long as people believe the extremes represent the majority, power stays exactly where it is.This Is Not NewThis dynamic is ancient.It existed in tribes.It existed in empires.It exists now.The tools change.The incentives do not.What has changed is the speed at which systems can now update.The System Update Is Technological, Not IdeologicalIf we move toward:* Blockchain-based verification* AI-assisted systems* Hard money* Certifiable truthThen the outcome is already known.That is why smart leaders are already updating their systems.Trying to stop AI or blockchain is like trying to stop the sun from setting. It is futile—and the resistance itself is revealing.There will be a bifurcated world going forward:* Economically* Socially* RelationallyNot along left/right lines—but along truth vs illusion.The Cave and the LightSome will exit the cave and seek light.Others, frightened and manipulated, will prefer the comfort of shadows—convincing themselves that what they see projected on the wall is reality.This is not abstract philosophy.It is operational reality.Once you see the code, there is no un-seeing it.You can pretend for a while.You can defer the conclusion.But the ending does not change.COVID Was the Mask Falling OffCOVID was not just a crisis.It was a stress test.A test of:* Compliance* Fear thresholds* Narrative control* Identification of dissent* Identification of independent thinkersAt this point, believing it was only about public health requires an aversion to light.The variables are now known.And once camps are formed with clarity, the outcome becomes inevitable.Systems Either Serve Users—or They UpdateSystems exist to serve the end user.Balance is achieved when users’ needs are met within human nature constraints.When a system becomes so imbalanced that the only way to thrive within it is to do wrong—the system must update.There are only two paths:Option 1:Cave dwellers dig in until collapse forces a reboot.Option 2:Light seekers reach consensus and update the system in real time.There is no third option.Why Nothing Ever Gets “Fixed”If the incentives of the people “fixing” a problem require that the problem never be solved, then patches replace solutions.Modern political theater depends on this.Broken systems are profitable.Dependence is profitable.Permanent crisis is profitable.Real solutions would put entire platforms out of business.That is why they are never offered.Hierarchy Is Not the EnemyThere will always be hierarchy.This is nature.In a healthy system—like a wolf pack—the leader is chosen because they best protect the group. When they can no longer do so, they are challenged.When hierarchy becomes inverted—when the weakest, most corrupt, and least beneficial rise to the top through misaligned incentives—The update becomes inevitable.This Moment Was Not AccidentalThis is not the same administration.Not the same cabinet.Not the same assumptions.The system believed it could:* Erode constitutional rights* Normalize surveillance* Institutionalize censorship* Weaponize justice* Create economic bifurcation* Maintain legitimacy indefinitelyIt was wrong.Extremes are not a threat.They are tools.Truth is the threat.Permissionless Systems Change EverythingThe real danger to entrenched power is not radicals.It is permissionless systems:* Uncontrollable* Unpredictable* Solution-oriented* Self-updatingOpen debate collapses extremist positions inward.That is why censorship escalated—from unthinkable, to encouraged, to openly discussed.To those clinging to the cave, censorship is not “wrong.”It is necessary to keep the shadows intact.There Is No Putting This BackThe genie is out of the bottle.The system update is accelerating at the speed of compute.Position your life accordingly.Help those you care about do the same.Liberty is contagious.A taste of freedom can make you unemployable—by broken systems.You do not need a hero.You are the one you’ve been waiting for.When that becomes consensus—System Update becomes fully operational.— ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    7 Min.
  • Rhymes like Defi Defines Like Structural Integrity

    Rhymes like Defi Defines Like Structural Integrity
    Jan 5 2026

    Rhymes like Defi

    Defines Like Structural Integrity

    Most people miss the real distinction.

    They focus on the what.

    The protocol.

    The mechanics.

    The innovation.

    But the real distinction is the who.

    It’s people.

    Always has been.

    The foundational layer of my entire thesis is Adam.

    I’ve known him for years.

    In a previous life in this space, my skill asymmetry was simple:

    I found exceptional artists well before consensus.

    I bought their work for pennies.

    I supported them.

    I helped them get discovered.

    And every single time—without exception—

    there was already one wallet there.

    Same wallet.

    Early.

    Heavily allocated.

    That’s how I found Adam.

    And Adam has my single non-negotiable trait:

    Integrity.

    People either have it—or they don’t.

    If they don’t, they don’t even register as inputs.

    Only as AVOID and WARN OTHERS.

    At some point, I reframed NFTs as New Friend Technology.

    Not speculation.

    Not clout.

    Not status.

    Connection.

    I remember buying a piece from an artist for what amounted to the cost of a dinner for two.

    They DM’d me afterward and said:

    “Thank you. I don’t have to worry about rent this month.”

    That conversation never left me.

    That was the inflection point—

    when I understood the real potential of this space.

    Every new technology follows the same arc.

    Innovation.

    Adoption.

    Over-leverage.

    Then extraction by misaligned actors.

    NFTs were no different.

    I talk about this in A Love Letter to NFTs.

    Sustainability requires alignment.

    Artist.

    Collector.

    Founder.

    Break that triangle—and the ecosystem collapses.

    Adam is one of maybe three people on Earth who personally know, have met, and are genuine friends with XCOPY.

    And XCOPY is the most important artist in this space.

    That is not opinion.

    That is signal.

    Across all mediums, it’s XCOPY and Banksy.

    Nothing else is close.

    What do they have in common?

    Anonymity.

    Integrity.

    And systems-level signal.

    They are not narrative.

    They are architecture.

    They provide the “wink.”

    Like an M. Night Shyamalan moment.

    Or the quiet unease in a Christopher Nolan film.

    You feel that something is wrong.

    You know something needs to change.

    Most people frame that feeling through narrative.

    Narratives flip.

    Math does not.

    Adam and XCOPY’s friendship is my thesis.

    Because the foundation isn’t technology.

    It’s integrity.

    This isn’t really DeFi.

    Those are just familiar words people use to reconcile what they’re seeing.

    PNKSTR is something else.

    PNKSTR is the settlement layer for digital art.

    It is the settlement layer for NFTs.

    CryptoPunks are the SPY of NFTs.

    Where they go, the market follows.

    XCOPY is our Banksy.

    Combine them—and you are not buying hype.

    You are buying deflationary exposure to digital culture itself.

    This is the same way I explain ETH.

    It’s not a coin.

    It’s infrastructure.

    The Internet for the AI age.

    Now imagine if you could buy shares of The Internet.

    Or shares of the Electrical Grid.

    The utility plumbing system everything else depends on.

    Not a company.

    Not an application.

    Not a trend.

    The base layer everything else is built on.

    That’s what this is.

    One billion total units.

    That number only goes down.

    Every single day.

    With a future supply shock that rhymes with:

    Five-hundred-thousand-dollar Bitcoin.

    Fifty-thousand-dollar ETH.

    One-million-dollar Punks.

    XCOPY already sells ten-of-ten editions for three-point-four million dollars.

    So ask yourself—

    What happens when Punks are at five hundred K…

    when BTC and ETH are halfway to where they’re going…

    and when XCOPY completes his sixth Max Pain burn?

    Yeah.

    That’s what this is.

    — ICT



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit icanttrade.substack.com
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    5 Min.
  • PNKSTR: THE SETTLEMENT LAYER OF PROGRAMMABLE CULTURE

    PNKSTR: THE SETTLEMENT LAYER OF PROGRAMMABLE CULTURE
    Jan 4 2026
    PNKSTR: THE SETTLEMENT LAYER OF PROGRAMMABLE CULTUREWith Official CryptoPunks Endorsement Live — and Beeple Strategy Participation ExpectedICT PNKSTR PREDICTION THREAD 9/14/25How ICT Predicted PunkStrategy, Why PNKSTR Is the First Liquidity-Weighted Deflation Engine in Crypto, and What Happens When Culture Becomes InfrastructureExecutive Summary (TL;DR for Investors)PNKSTR is not a meme token.It is the deflationary settlement layer for the entire TokenStrategy ecosystem — now operating with official CryptoPunks marketplace support live, and with Beeple-aligned strategy participation widely expected based on public signaling, structural alignment, and market behavior.Using audited on-chain strategy data and confirmed SweepSTR market signals, PNKSTR is currently burning approximately:* ~$9,000 per day* ~187,000 PNKSTR per day* ~68.3 million PNKSTR per year* ~6.8% of total supply annuallyThis burn rate exists before the system fully absorbs:* Expanded CryptoPunks strategy integrations* Beeple strategy flows* Larva Labs ecosystem participation* Vault NFT reflexive burn events* PAINSTR dual-reflexive volume shocksPNKSTR operates on a two-layer deflation model:* Base-State Burn (always on)* Catalyst Burn (cycle accelerant)This structure produces nonlinear supply compression, not narrative scarcity.ICT Saw the Endgame Before the Pieces MovedWhen CryptoPunks launched, the market framed them as digital art.ICT framed them as infrastructure.Ten thousand identical units.Trait-indexed scarcity.No emissions.No inflation.No narrative dilution.The early thesis was simple and precise:Punks were never the asset.They were the operating system.That insight predated TokenWorks.It predated PunkStrategy.It predated collection bids, vault mechanics, and strategy-level liquidity routing.What followed was not innovation — it was inevitability.Official CryptoPunks Endorsement: The Line That MattersCryptoPunks’ launch of official collection bids and trait bids on their own marketplace marked the moment the ecosystem crossed from cultural novelty into institutional infrastructure.This was not cosmetic.Collection-level and trait-level bidding transforms Punks from individual collectibles into indexable liquidity primitives.It enables:* Continuous price discovery* Trait-based demand aggregation* Institutional-grade strategy deployment* Scalable liquidity routingThis is the structural prerequisite for PunkStrategy and for PNKSTR to function as a settlement layer.No collection bids means no programmable liquidity.With them, Punks become computable.That is endorsement — not by marketing language, but by architecture.What PNKSTR Actually IsPNKSTR is the ecosystem token for TokenStrategy.Every strategy deployed on the platform routes value as follows:* 1% of all trading volume is used to buy and burn PNKSTR* 80% of deploy fees are burned into PNKSTR* 100% of Vault NFT ETH sales are used to buy and burn PNKSTRAll of these actions permanently remove tokens from circulation.There are:* No emissions* No inflation* No treasury sell pressure* No passive dilutionOnly forced market demand paired with irreversible supply destruction.PNKSTR is not yield.It is settlement-layer deflation.Audited Base-State Burn (Verified, Not Projected)After auditing approximately 75 live strategies using real screenshots and on-chain volume data, the TokenStrategy ecosystem currently processes:* ~$898,000+ per day in actual trading volumeBy design:* 1% of that volume is routed into PNKSTR buy & burnThis produces a base-state burn of roughly:* ~$8,987 per day* ~187,000 PNKSTR burned daily* ~68.3 million PNKSTR burned annually* ~6.8% of total supply per yearThis burn engine is always on.It does not require new launches.It does not depend on sentiment.It exists wherever liquidity exists.Why Strategy Count Does Not Drive BurnOut of roughly 150 total strategies, about 87 currently show zero trading volume.These strategies contributed only one-time deploy burns and do not impact daily burn rates.This matters.Burn is not a function of total strategy count.Burn is a function of liquidity concentration.A small number of high-volume strategies generate the overwhelming majority of persistent buy-and-burn activity.This is healthy system design — not a flaw.SweepSTR: Market Behavior That Precedes BurnSweepSTR data — especially as documented through repeated NFT sweep posts — provides unfiltered insight into participant behavior before volume arrives on-chain.Repeated patterns appear across blue-chip collections:* Large NFT sweep clusters* Rapid floor repricing* Volume concentration windowsThese events consistently precede:* Strategy trading volume spikes* PNKSTR burn acceleration* Vault NFT price discoveryThe causal sequence is clear:NFT sweeps → strategy volume → forced PNKSTR burnSweepSTR is not predicting price.It is detecting liquidity ignition.The Catalyst Layer: Where Deflation Becomes NonlinearThe next phase of the system is driven by ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    13 Min.
  • The New Bretton Woods:

    The New Bretton Woods:
    Jan 2 2026
    A Systems Update: When incentive structure is broken completely, patches no longer work.A systems update substantial enough to replace the legacy one, emerges.**By ICTA 1/1 Framework Manuscript — Minted on Ethereum, 2025SynopsisThe global monetary system is not collapsing.It is being rewritten in real time.Not through rebellion.Not through ideology.But through protocol.What is emerging is a New Bretton Woods — not negotiated in conference rooms, but enforced by hard constraints: energy, gold, compute, cryptography, and software. Trust is no longer assumed. It is verified.This publication documents that transition as it happens, grounded in a single minted framework manuscript that underpins all analysis presented here.This Is Happening in Real TimeThis shift is observable.Sovereigns are rethinking reserves.Financial institutions are rebuilding settlement rails.AI and compute are now treated as national infrastructure.Blockchain is no longer experimental — it is foundational.The only thing lagging is consensus.Confirmations From the PresentThis transition is no longer speculative. It has been confirmed openly by the architects of capital and power.Larry Fink — “Every asset will be tokenized.”Brian Armstrong — “On-chain is the future of finance.”Scott Bessent — Publicly emphasized the necessity of gold revaluation and balance-sheet realism to resolve structural debt dynamics.President Donald J. Trump — Advocated gold’s re-monetization and budget-neutral Bitcoin reserve frameworks, framing digital assets as leverage rather than risk.Senator Cynthia Lummis — “Bitcoin is freedom money,” and a strategic reserve asset.The CLARITY Act — Explicitly recognizes digital assets, tokenized settlement, and regulatory clarity as core financial infrastructure.These are not opinions.They are policy signals, issued in real time.The Framework ManuscriptAll work published here is derived from a single primary source:The New Bretton Woods — by ICTA 1/1 framework manuscript, finalized and minted on-chain.This is not commentary.It is not prediction.It is a systems map.Energy: The Prime Control VectorEnergy is not a side issue.Energy is the market.Inflation is energy plus government spending — full stop.The so-called Green New Deal was not an energy policy.It was a control vector.By constraining domestic energy production, it:* raised costs across the entire economy* hollowed out the middle class* outsourced pollution abroad* and weakened national securityThe correct energy policy is simple:Drill. Baby. Drill.Nearly every major prediction in An Inconvenient Truth that seeded modern climate consensus has proven demonstrably false by the data. The narrative persisted because it was useful — not because it was accurate.China exploited this arbitrage while:* mass-building coal plants* dumping industrial waste* and industrializing at historic scaleThis is documented in The China Hustle and The Hundred-Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury — Kissinger’s top CCP inclusion facilitator — who has stated that bringing China into the WTO was the greatest foreign policy mistake of his career.Empires fall when they cannot power themselves.Energy abundance is not immoral.It is foundational.The Obama Doctrine: Capture Through CompassionThe Obama Doctrine was not a memo.It was a method.Heart strings were used to bypass scrutiny.Institutions were captured quietly.Speech became “harm.”Questions became “threats.”Everything inconvenient became “racist” — not as diagnosis, but as a stop word.The liberal wing of a two-party system was transformed into something new:* pro-censorship* pro-foreign intervention* hostile to verificationMinnesota Daycare Fraud: A Perfect MicrocosmForeign policy destabilization drives mass migration.NGOs receive funding to manage it.Political kickbacks flow through nonprofit opacity.Fraud proliferates under moral cover.Supply and demand for U.S. staples inflate.Corporate profit margins expand.Taxpayers absorb the cost.Complicit politicians are re-elected.This is incentive alignment — just not for the public.Two questions collapse the entire system:* “Do you have kids at this daycare?”* “Why do I need an ID to drive, buy alcohol, buy a home, fly, pass KYC, apply for employment or a security clearance — but not to vote?”There is no serious answer.Pre-Programming: Art as a System DiagnosticThe health of a society is reflected in its art and entertainment.Art is a lagging indicator of systemic balance.When protagonists are always anti-heroes raging against the machine, it signals a broken incentive structure.When villains are cheered — Joker, Civil War, One Battle After Another — legitimacy has collapsed.Right and wrong are known quantities.If the only solution presented is doing wrong, the system itself is no longer valid.This is not rebellion.It is diagnosis.COVID: Mass PsychosisCOVID was a global psychological inflection point.Real uncertainty was ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    13 Min.
  • A Love Letter to the NFT Space

    A Love Letter to the NFT Space
    Dec 31 2025
    In a market filled with self-serving, extractive asshats, the most important variable is:INTEGRITY + ALIGNMENT + CONSISTENCY + REWARDThat equation equals PFPEPE — the Blue Chip PFP Pepe project the space needs but doesn’t have.Just like ICT tried to create before,the Marketthe FEDCognitive Bias PartnersOperation Choke Point 2.0IRL Responsibilities all got in the wayICT previous NFT Projects were ARTIST FIRST, ROYALTIES FIRST, and ICT previous NFT Projects (regardless of market effects and naming “restriction”) were always ART FIRST, ARTIST FIRST, ROYALTIES ENFORCED.Long-term commitment — like Max Pain, Color Study, Checks, Openpen, or Otherside — is the real test of a founder or artist’s commitment. Perseverance thru negative market conditions is the test of that commitmentThe goal was using market ROI potential of holders getting “gated membership benefits” to spread awareness of great ART — in turn, turning pass holders into the strongest aligned cheerleaders of both the project itself and the Artists contributing to the projects Art.That programmatic execution caused real interaction between holders and artists:Collectors buying and supporting works outside of the “ICT previous NFT Projects” system.It was onboarding real and new collectors into artists’ work within that system’s sphere.ICT previous NFT Projects were first.Proof came to market faster (they had a team and VC funding; ICT had himself and one co-founder). After came former “project members” who used the roadmap, membership discord, and artist interactions to “COPY AND PASTE” the roadmap and intent of the project. ICT didn’t hold i’ll will towards them, a good idea is going to get emulated. But like anything in life, there is a RIGHT and WRONG way of doing things. Stealing an idea is one thing, front running announcements, forming your own mirror image project with large investment and monetary backing, and reaching out with that money to poach artists you knew ICT project was working on getting onboarded, is another thing. The people I’m speaking of, know exactly who they are. I don’t need to call them out. Karma can be a mother f****r. For contextICT previous Art first project had the following budget and investment-0$ -0$ VC or investment or seed money1x Idea2x FoundersEndless hours of DMs, buying art, online in perpetuityMonths of time and focus reallocated from relationships The entire thing was built on TRUST, Aligned Incentives, Love of Art, and CommunityBut 3 members specifically did the “Biggest form of Flattery”By using discord conversations and private DMs to use MONEY and private conversations to Grift like a politicianThey didn’t just WETH everything and leaveThat came later lolIf I would have put there “new and innovative” idea into ChatgptIt would have said “Copyright Infringement” “Theft of Intellectual Property and Ideas” “Project Espionage”But I don’t hold a grudge I don’t even know what happened to those projects As living in the past is the only way to ensure don’t move forwardICT previous NFT Projects were completely organic.They used relationships and aligned incentives for execution.KRO, COZOMO, Krybharat, Cyborgnomand, and other large collectors were membersAlong with many of the contributing ArtistsThe artists work contributing spoke for itselfThe blindside gap — the failure risk — was not fully appreciated.ICT did not think royalties would go awayThey were the foundational and critical use case of NFTs as a sector.Royalites were how the project minted once and then you were locked in for great art and other innovations, membership benefits, for 2 yearsRecurring revenue built on continually increased value propositionsIncome from Secondary Sales as the Team Executed and bigger and bigger Artists and Collectors became program champions WAS THE BUSINESS MODEL Then Blur really fucked the space.The sustainable business model collapsed — visible in secondary prices and the overall demeanor of the market.When ICT needed to step away due to IRL responsibilities and Operation Choke Point 2.0 banking/funding risk, he made sure ICT previous NFT Project had a quality replacement— smart, capable, a good collector. Who had already apprently been pitching the idea to the other co-founderWhen the partner briefed a rebrand and a move to Solana, ICT stepped back entirely.If they wanted his opinion, it was a colossal mistake.Certain project death.Predictable and inevitableYou don’t know what you have until its goneYou take people for granted for long enoughThey won’t be there when you need themDon’t forget who got you to the dance in the first placeRight Founders……? BTC/ETH are the only chains that matter.Everything else is secondary and developmental.ICT is a Program Manager and artist/talent-relationship specialist.This is why he gets recruited IRL by Banksters and Wealth Management divisions.He knows markets better than their bosses — ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    15 Min.
  • Adam Disbrow- An Artist You Should Know

    Adam Disbrow- An Artist You Should Know
    Dec 30 2025
    Adam Disbrow: Systems of Duality, Consciousness, and the Architecture of BalanceThere are artists who decorate walls, and there are artists who interrogate systems.Adam Disbrow belongs firmly to the latter.Across nearly a decade of exhibitions—spanning physical galleries, international institutions, and native-digital platforms—Disbrow’s work has remained unusually consistent in its central concern: the structure of opposites that define reality itself. Life and death. Sacred and profane. Material and immaterial. Physical decay and digital permanence.This is not aesthetic ambiguity for its own sake. It is system analysis—rendered in pigment, metal, and symbol.In that sense, Disbrow’s work aligns naturally with System Update: a project concerned with balance, inversion, feedback loops, and the reconciliation of opposing forces inside modern economic, technological, and cultural architectures.Art as a Diagnostic ToolDisbrow has described art as a mirror—not a didactic device, but a reflective one. His paintings do not instruct; they expose.“Art can reveal the unseen elements that define us individually.”That statement is deceptively simple. In practice, his work operates like a diagnostic scan of consciousness under pressure. Layered surfaces—built from varying sheens, textures, metals, and repeated symbols—force the viewer into a relationship with contradiction. You are never allowed to settle fully into one interpretation.This is deliberate.Systems break when they pretend contradictions don’t exist. Disbrow’s paintings refuse that lie.Duality as Structure, Not ThemeIn System Update, we often describe reality as a push-pull system rather than a linear one. Disbrow’s work embodies this principle visually.Sacred and ProfaneGold appears repeatedly—not as luxury, but as paradox. The gold square is neither purely holy nor purely material; it is a content generator, a symbol that only becomes meaningful through context. This mirrors how power functions in modern systems: neutral in abstraction, moral only in application.Life and DeathThe recurring heart motif—rendered in red, white, or black—functions less as a romantic symbol and more as a state machine:* Red: mortality* White: immortality* Black: deathThis triad echoes systemic cycles found everywhere: expansion, stasis, collapse. No state is permanent. No condition exists in isolation.Physical vs DigitalDisbrow’s use of genuine silver leaf—chosen specifically because it tarnishes—stands in direct opposition to the permanence of digital artifacts.This is not nostalgia. It is critique.In an era where digital representations are immutable and endlessly replicated, physical decay becomes a form of truth. Entropy is not a flaw—it is evidence of life.Symbolism as System LanguageDisbrow’s symbolic vocabulary is unusually disciplined. Each recurring element functions less like a metaphor and more like a variable.* Single Square with Line ThroughA quanta. A building block. A unit of consciousness. Comparable to a photon or electron—small, indivisible, foundational.* Multiple Squares with Line ThroughPerspective itself. Consciousness bound to context. Reality as viewpoint-dependent.* Three Jagged LinesAn electromagnetic field—energy rather than matter. Force without form.* Cogs of Creation (Three Circles)Mind, body, soul. Trinity across cultures. Interlocking systems that only function together.* Binary Sequences & Equation of Creation (1/10 → 10/1 = 11)Created reality expressed mathematically. Not mysticism—structure.This is why his work resonates so strongly with systems thinkers. These are not decorative symbols. They are interfaces.Alignment with System UpdateAt its core, System Update argues that modern breakdowns—financial, cultural, political—stem from imbalances that have been ignored too long. Push without pull. Extraction without regeneration. Control without feedback.Disbrow’s work visualizes the same failure modes.* Consciousness caged inside the body (barbed wire)* Language as both connector and weapon (tongue on a string)* Legacy as crown—earned, not inherited* Creation as cyclical, not linear (fountain, gyre, trinity)Where System Update uses markets, history, and technology, Disbrow uses surface, symbol, and contradiction. The underlying philosophy is the same:Stability does not come from eliminating opposites—it comes from holding them in tension.Selected Works & Critical ContextTraditional art spaces have often framed Disbrow’s work through the lens of contemporary expressionism, noting the lineage from figures like Edvard Munch and Jasper Johns—particularly in the evolution of tactile symbols such as forks and spoons, which in Disbrow’s hands become signifiers of sensation, desire, fertility, and embodied experience.Critics have also highlighted his layered construction as a method of time compression—each painting acting as a palimpsest of decisions, revisions, and reversals. This...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    9 Min.
  • The Last Secular Gold Bull Was the 1970s

    The Last Secular Gold Bull Was the 1970s
    Dec 28 2025
    The Last Secular Gold Bull Was the 1970s — And Why That Matters NowMost investors misunderstand gold cycles because they confuse price appreciation with regime change.Gold can rise for many reasons.A secular gold bull only happens for one.Loss of faith in the system’s underlying truths.The last time that happened—unambiguously—was the 1970s. Not because inflation was high, but because the monetary framework itself broke.What followed was not simply a bull market.It was a re-pricing of trust.That distinction matters, because we are approaching another such moment now.Secular vs Cyclical: Why Definitions MatterA cyclical bull is an expression of the system.A secular bull is a challenge to it.Gold rises cyclically when:* Inflation expectations increase* The dollar weakens temporarily* Risk assets wobbleGold rises secularly when:* The rules of money change* Confidence in institutions fractures* Previously “settled” economic truths are invalidatedThe 1970s meet this standard perfectly.The 1970s: When the System Admitted It Was BrokenThe Catalyst: 1971When the U.S. closed the gold window, it wasn’t a policy tweak. It was an admission:The system can no longer support its own promises.Gold transitioned from a suppressed monetary anchor to a free-floating barometer of trust. That single act forced the world to discover what gold was actually worth in a fiat system.The Conditions* Persistent negative real rates* Fiscal dominance from war and social spending* Oil shocks exposing resource dependency* Central banks visibly behind the curve* Public confidence erodingGold didn’t rise because investors were clever.It rose because the system was relearning its own price signals.The ResolutionThe secular bull ended only when Volcker restored positive real rates and credibility to monetary policy. Trust was rebuilt—not cheaply, not painlessly—but definitively.That is how secular cycles end.Why 2000–2011 Was Not the SameThe gold rally from 2000 to 2011 is often labeled “secular,” but structurally it was not.Yes, gold went from ~$250 to ~$1,900.No, the system did not reset.There was:* No monetary anchor removed* No fundamental repricing of money* No restoration moment at the endInstead, that period coincided with:* Peak globalization* China’s WTO accession* The expansion phase of the global credit supercycleGold rose as a pressure valve, not as a replacement.When liquidity rotated and confidence temporarily returned, gold stalled—not because the problem was solved, but because it was deferred.That distinction brings us to now.The Pattern: Secular Gold Bulls Follow the Same TriggerThere is a symmetry across history that is often missed:* 1970s: Bretton Woods fails → gold reprices money* 2000s: Credit excess stresses system → gold hedges fragility* 2020s: Fiat credibility, debt saturation, and geopolitical fragmentation convergeEach cycle begins the same way:A loss of faith in previously held market truths.What is different now is what comes next.The Emerging Thesis: A Return to Hard CollateralThe system is not moving backward to a gold standard.It is moving forward to a collateralized monetary framework.Gold and Bitcoin as Collateral, Not CurrencyGold and Bitcoin serve the same role:* Scarce* Non-sovereign* Balance-sheet honestGold anchors trust historically.Bitcoin anchors it digitally.They are not competitors.They are dual collateral layers.Ethereum as the Settlement RailWhere past systems relied on paper promises and opaque clearing, this system runs on:* Smart contracts* Tokenized settlement* Transparent, programmable railsEthereum is not “money.”It is infrastructure.Just as railroads did not replace goods—but moved them—Ethereum does not replace value. It settles it.Why AI Industrialization Forces Hard MoneyAI changes the equation entirely.AI requires:* Massive, continuous energy input* Physical data centers* Semiconductors* Raw materials* Skilled blue-collar labor at scaleThis is not a digital-only revolution.It is a re-industrialization event.And industrial systems do not function on abstract monetary promises indefinitely. They require credible collateral, long-dated capital, and stable settlement.That is why:* Energy* Metals* Infrastructure* Laborare entering a structural supercycle.This mirrors the 1970s in cause, not form:* Then: oil and manufacturing exposed monetary weakness* Now: AI and compute expose monetary abstractionSame trigger. New surface.The Blue-Collar Supercycle No One Is PricingEvery major monetary reset has a labor component.The coming cycle favors:* Electricians* Welders* Construction trades* Semiconductor technicians* Energy workersNot because of politics, but because physical systems are returning to center stage.You cannot AI your way out of thermodynamics.This is why inflation is no longer “transitory” in the classical sense. It is embedded in the rebuild.(below from ICT Pre-FOMC Substack: FOMC Day: The Liquidity Pivot That Ignites the Next Market...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    13 Min.
  • The Global Monetary System Is Being Rewritten — Not by Rebellion, but by Protocol

    The Global Monetary System Is Being Rewritten — Not by Rebellion, but by Protocol
    Dec 26 2025
    The Global Monetary System Is Being Rewritten — Not by Rebellion, but by ProtocolHow AI infrastructure, gold revaluation, Bitcoin reserves, and onchain verification are quietly replacing a trust-based system with a settlement-based one.“The System Isn’t Being Attacked. It’s Being Updated.”An ICT Proof of ConceptThis article is a proof of concept for the ICT protocol going forward.It explains — in one integrated framework — why precious metals are moving, why Bitcoin has crossed into sovereign strategy, why equity indexes and crypto are diverging, and why governments are being forced toward cryptographic verification of truth itself.This is not a collection of themes.It is one system transition.1. Why Precious Metals Are Moving FirstPrecious metals are the oldest “trust me” paper-market collateral — a system built on claims, rehypothecation, and confidence rather than continuous physical settlement.For decades, metals markets have operated on layered paper claims that assume delivery will not be demanded en masse. This works — until it doesn’t.ICT’s core assertion is simple:When delivery is demanded, paper markets do not fail gradually. They fail discretely.A) AI infrastructure creates real, unavoidable demandThe industrial build-out of artificial intelligence — what ICT has framed as Project Genesis — requires physical reality:* data centers* power generation* grids* chips* wiring* metalsThis is not speculative demand. It is input demand.Precious metals do not need a conspiracy to move higher in a world that is explicitly re-industrializing compute at scale.B) The deeper driver: paper vs physical stressWe already know paper markets can be manipulated. JPMorgan paid $920 million related to spoofing and manipulation in precious metals and U.S. Treasury markets — a documented precedent that “price” can be shaped when settlement is deferred.ICT’s thesis is not controversial:If the same ounce of metal underwrites multiple derivative claims, price stability exists only as long as delivery is not required.Once lenders, sovereigns, or large holders demand physical settlement, exchange-visible supply collapses and price discovery snaps to reality.That is what metals are signaling.2. Gold Revaluation Is a Balance-Sheet Lever, Not a ConspiracyThe United States officially carries its gold at a statutory value of $42.22 per ounce, a relic of 1973 accounting.This is not debated. It is written into law and reiterated in Treasury Inspector General audits.ICT’s inference (clearly stated as such):A mark-to-market revaluation — or a functionally equivalent accounting adjustment — is a budget-neutral lever that allows sovereign balance sheets to be recapitalized without selling the asset and without overt default.This is not “printing” money in the Federal Reserve sense.It is re-rating an asset already owned.And critically: Treasury does not require Congressional approval to make an accounting adjustment — just as the Federal Reserve does not require Congressional approval to expand its own balance sheet.That distinction matters.3. Bitcoin Has Crossed Into Sovereign StrategyIn March 2025, the White House issued an Executive Order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a broader Digital Asset Stockpile.This is the inflection point.Bitcoin is no longer treated as:* a hobby* a protest* a fringe tradeIt is now a recognized sovereign-grade reserve asset.ICT’s framework:* Gold anchors credibility in the legacy system.* Bitcoin anchors credibility in the new system — because it is verifiable, scarce, and settlement-final.Bitcoin is not replacing gold.It is completing it.4. Paper Metals and Paper Crypto Are the Same Structural ProblemICT is not accusing every exchange or broker of fraud.ICT is stating a structural reality:* Exchange balances are claims* Broker balances are claims* ETFs are claims* The base-layer asset is something else entirelyThis is true in metals.It is true in Bitcoin and Ethereum.As long as paper claims float freely and are rehypothecated, price can be shaped.But when holders demand delivery of the underlying asset, the system must reconcile claims with reality.That reconciliation is the coming crunch.5. Why Indexes and Crypto Are DivergingThis divergence is not irrational.Equity indexes can be supported by narrative, buybacks, benchmark flows, and accounting flexibility.Crypto reprices faster because it trades the settlement layer, not just future earnings.ICT’s view:Crypto is front-running the ledger change. Indexes are still priced in the old one.The October leveraged washout cleared excess speculation and allowed institutions to begin placing risk-modeled, spot-driven bids ahead of regulatory clarity.This is not conspiracy.It is structure.Institutions do not buy what they cannot model, hedge, and defend.6. The System Is Past the Point Where Old Fixes WorkQE was the antibiotic.Liquidity was the drug.The system built tolerance.Now it rejects the ...
    Mehr anzeigen Weniger anzeigen
    11 Min.