7 Grey Swan Predictions

January 1, 2025 • 40 second read

Ironically or not, the thread that binds all of these Grey Swan events is a reliance on debt at all levels of society and a consumer culture that favors short-term gratification. Political violence is just a f’d up way of expressing dissatisfaction with a culture that values material goods over some kind of weird spiritualism. Both of the assailants in New Orleans and in Las Vegas were military and in financial distress.

Grey Swan #7: Debt Binge Ends

Grey Swan #6: Banks Go First

Grey Swan #5: BRICS Bucks Continue To Challenge the US Dollar

Grey Swan #4: The China Wild Card: Tariffs and Chips

Grey Swan #3: Death of the Middle Class

Grey Swan #2: Mutant AI and the Death of Free Speech

Grey Swan #1: Return of American Political Violence

Bonus Grey Swan: Rise of the American Police State

Beneath the Surface

7 Grey Swan Predictions

Addison Wiggin

January 1, 2025 • 40 second read

Grey Swan #7: Debt Binge Ends

Grey Swan #6: Banks Go First

Grey Swan #5: BRICS Bucks Continue To Challenge the US Dollar

Grey Swan #4: The China Wild Card: Tariffs and Chips

Grey Swan #3: Death of the Middle Class

Grey Swan #2: Mutant AI and the Death of Free Speech

Grey Swan #1: Return of American Political Violence

Bonus Grey Swan: Rise of the American Police State

Oil, AI, and the Petro-Dollar on Digital Rails

February 18, 2026 • Addison Wiggin

U.S. aircraft carriers and air defense systems continue arriving in the Gulf. Iran conducted drills that briefly disrupted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and warned of retaliation for any strike.

Oil, AI, and the Petro-Dollar on Digital Rails

The Great Rotation to “Stuff”

February 18, 2026 • Addison Wiggin

It’s pretty clear from the leaderboard year-to-date that investors are moving their money out of AI stocks into real-world “stuff” – the energy and commodities, natural that are the building blocks of an economy.

Frank Holmes: Why the 10/10 Crypto Crash Still Haunts Bitcoin

February 17, 2026 • Addison Wiggin

The crash was a major structural shock that wiped out leveraged positions and forced necessary, but painful, deleveraging across the digital asset ecosystem.

Did irresponsible marketing campaigns by certain platforms contribute to the crash? Again, I believe yes. When you incentivize users to treat a tokenized hedge fund like a stablecoin and then allow unlimited leverage on top of that, risk is amplified.

As massive as the crash was, it may have been necessary medicine. Sometimes excess leverage needs to be flushed from the system before the next move higher can begin. I believe we’re in the last stages of that process.

Frank Holmes: Why the 10/10 Crypto Crash Still Haunts Bitcoin

SpaceX and the Private Capital Edge

February 17, 2026 • Addison Wiggin

Gallup reports that 62.1% of Americans describe themselves as thriving in 2025, down 2.7 percentage points from 2024. Yet, only 59.2% expect a high quality of life in five years, the lowest reading on record. We wonder how many of the 40.8% of the naysayers were trading on Robinhood…

Our goal at Grey Swan is to make sure we’re in the cohort of thrivers now, five years from now… and beyond.

To that end, folks who build durable positions tend to focus on balance sheets, cost structures, and who controls the pipes — whether those pipes carry rockets, data, oil, or dollars.