Minnesota’s Collapse, Crypto Rebounding
509: ICE Unrest, Terror Updates, UK Grooming Gang Court Files
Morning guys.
Another exciting week unfolding before us and a lot to cover. Yesterday I dove into the insane developments regarding national security, domestic threats, the drama about narco boat strikes in the Caribbean, and the idea that we might be living through some sort of colour revolution.
You can read the post below
You’re Not Imagining It, Something Is Very Wrong
Yesterday was wild, we had two tweets featuring videos of global war on terror apache helicopter attacks go absolutely bonkers-viral amassing like 5,000,000 views in less than 24 hours.
Thousands of new Twitter/X followers and another 600 new subscribers to Arb Letter.
Welcome all newcomers.
As we head into the end of 2025, you’ve joined 33,000+ readers who recognize that the world is rapidly changing and want to understand the implications before everyone else catches up.
That, and the fact that Arb Letter covers topics the mainstream media won’t go near with a 5 foot stick.
You cannot afford noise, bias filled content, or lies at this point.
You need the unadulterated truth.
Today we’re covering quite a bit:
Equities, Fed Chair predictions, and macro
Crypto, institutional opinion shifts, and this recent bounce
UK grooming gangs and newly released court transcripts
The growing anti ICE unrest in the US and recent executive actions
The collapse of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and Somali Takeover of the state
We are fast approaching the start of 2026 which is going to no doubt be a highly volatile year.
As a reminder, we put out 1 free post per week and 1-2 paid posts for premium subs. You can also check out the archive which has 509+ posts, guides, and interviews.
Thanks for joining, let’s get into it.
Markets & Crypto
I don’t want to speak prematurely but it would appear that the tide is starting to turn a bit as we move away from QT (quantitative tightening) in early December and the rate cut narrative grows stronger.
As
said on Twitter/X though, don’t expect anything crazy until the next Fed Chair steps in. 25 is probably priced in at this point.Kevin Hassett (a crypto friendly pick) is lining up to potentially be the next Fed Chair after Jerome Powell. As we said last week, Hassett would be a big win for the crypto space.
Polymarket odds jumped in late November and now sit at about 84%. You can see the live odds here.
US ADP private payrolls fell by 32K in November, this is a clear sign the labor market is losing momentum. One print doesn’t make a trend of course, but this is the kind of deceleration you see when companies (especially small businesses) quietly start tightening budgets before it shows up in official unemployment data. The Fed is going to be forced to cut.
Japan’s 30-year jumped to ~3.43% which is the highest ever. This isn’t some isolated JGB quirk. When long-end yields finally get interesting, the capital and traders that spent years chasing returns abroad start drifting back home. That alone ends up tightening U.S. equities, Treasuries, and EM assets that benefited from Japan’s golden low-yield era.
It also ends up putting real pressure on the infamous yen carry trade. For years, investors borrowed in yen at basically zero and plowed the money into higher-yielding assets abroad.
As JGB yields rise, that math gets a lot less attractive, and the unwind is rocky. This explains a bit of the volatility over the weekend.
Even if the Fed is ramping up easing, this shift pushes global term premiums higher and then quietly drains liquidity from the risk-on world. Not an immediate blow-up by any means, but it is a real change in the backdrop that traders and Wall Street can’t ignore.
Silver opened the week ripping to new all-time highs above $58 (now above $59) as traders piled into the metals trade on rate-cut expectations and tightening supply. Since then we’ve seen a modest pullback, mostly some profit-taking but prices are still holding near the highs.
Year-to-date the move is absurd, silver is up close to triple digits and outperforming almost every major asset class. Gold has been strong as well of course, but the move has been more controlled. It’s grinding higher, not melting up, which only reinforces how extreme the relative demand for silver has become.
Why?
Well physical inventories at major exchanges have been trending lower and solar, EVs, electronics, and AI-adjacent manufacturing all require large amounts of silver (supply hasn’t kept up).
Silver is one thing I don’t own much of unfortunately.
TikTok announced a $37.6 billion investment into a Brazil data center this week
MSFT 0.00%↑ was down in early trading due to lower quotas for AI software (they have since denied this)
Polymarket’s U.S app is now being rolled out to those on the waitlist
Boeing jumped after executives projected stronger commercial jet deliveries next year
Apple AAPL 0.00%↑ shares edged up this week after supply-chain checks showed stronger-than-expected demand for the new Vision Pro 2 headset, with pre-orders reportedly running ahead of internal forecasts
Retail traders have been buying stocks and ETFs at double the levels seen on average over the last five years, topping activity during the 2021 meme mania, (WSJ/Unusual Whales)
Nvidia NVDA 0.00%↑ CEO Jensen Huang told Joe Rogan on his show today that President Trump “saved the AI industry.”
“At Palantir, we are on the side of working-class Americans. We support people who go to the military, we save their lives, we bring them home safer.”
Palantir CEO Alex Karp DealBook Summit
Crypto
Crypto is showing us a nice little pump as we move into year end which is encouraging to see after we got a second dip into the low 80’s. This hopefully fends off the scenario that we continue lower in the short term and gives the bears some pause on whether or not the true bear market is here yet.
Market cap has rebounded over $3 Trillion as of today and crypto funds recorded +$1.1 billion in inflows last week, the largest in 7 weeks (Kobeissi Letter).
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink admitted at the DealBook Summit he was wrong about crypto: “This is a very glaring, public example of a big shift in my opinions.”
Let me be clear, despite this pullback things are very very bullish under the surface and this time is an opportunity for those who recognize that.
My gut instinct is this is a reaction to the Fed Chair conversations and hopes that 2026 is going to be a much better environment for crypto as a whole.
I purchased Bitcoin and Ethereum on these recent dips, adding to my long term stacks. I am keeping an eye on the alts and memes showing strength including PEPE, AAVE, AVAX, and of course LINK.
Not adding yet, but maybe soon.
Bitcoin ETF volume surpassed $5.1 Billion yesterday on the first day Vanguard offered Bitcoin ETFs to clients, the dip has been bought
Binance has introduced Binance Junior, a parent-controlled crypto savings account for kids and teens (CoinTelegraph)
Anthropic is reportedly preparing for a potential 2026 IPO at a $300B+ valuation
$12 trillion Charles Schwab has said it will offer Bitcoin and Ethereum trading in early 2026 (yeah this is turbo bullish lmao)
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said this week major banks are piloting crypto with the platform
Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade went live today, a major hard fork that boosts scalability by introducing PeerDAS, a system that will let validators verify huge amounts of Layer-2 data without carrying the full load.
Combined with bigger block capacity and cheaper blob data handling, Ethereum becomes faster, lighter, and far more L2-friendly. Andy! What the f*ck does that even mean?
ETH is quietly upgrading its core plumbing for the next wave of adoption with lower fees, higher throughput, and stronger value capture just as the macro crowd is distracted elsewhere and some are saying ETH is cooked.
The story remains the same despite the extreme fear from weeks ago.
Institutions are prepping for a massive leg higher and preparing infrastructure for when they dive head into the fray.