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A Systems Update: Ican'tTrade's Substack Podcast

A Systems Update: Ican'tTrade's Substack Podcast

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 The New Macro Regime: Treasury Power, AI Industrialism, and the End of Fed Dominance Treasury Ascendant, the Fed Subordinated, and Project Genesis as the Engine of the Next Monetary Order BY ICT

icanttrade.substack.comIcan'tTrade Persönliche Finanzen Ökonomie
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  • 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.— ...
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    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
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    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 ...
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    13 Min.
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