What Happens Outside of Vegas

“The desert lay in wait, more infinite than God, no less remote.”

–Debora Greger

June 3, 2025 — Prior to attending last week’s Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, my wife and I took advantage of Memorial Day weekend to hit the city and see some sights.

Today’s missive is one part travelogue, and one part analysis of what we learned from our travels.

Raintree

While Las Vegas is a desert basin standing at an elevation of about 2,500 feet, the surrounding mountains go up to nearly 12,000 feet.

About 10,000 feet up, nestled in a protective cove between two larger ranges, stands Raintree. It’s one of the oldest-known trees in Nevada, with an estimated age of 3,000 to 4,000 years.

Turn Your Images On

A mere 2-hour hike up numerous switchbacks will take you to this desolate spot, where you can reflect on the passage of time.

This tree has been around for every human financial market bubble. And much like Warren Buffett’s investment returns, it shows the power of slow and steady growth – if you’ve got the time to do so.

It’s a nice contrast to the everyday hustle and speed with which work needs to get done.

And when things aren’t going well in the markets, like the bear swing earlier this year, it’s a good reminder of advice that was old even when it was written in the Bible: This too shall pass.

Wroxeter’s Twin City

Last summer, on our belated honeymoon, my wife and I visited the ruins of the Roman city of Wroxeter, once the Roman Empire’s second-largest city in what today is the United Kingdom.

As I wrote at the time:

Seeing the Roman ruins makes one think that an empire doesn’t collapse overnight. But it does collapse. And it likely starts at the fringe. Those at the fringe wise up by pulling back to the center, or they adapt to a new empire.

And cities may not turn to ruins overnight. But left unkept, they will. Today’s modern cities and infrastructure could become unrecognizable within a few decades as nature takes back and grows over.

I had similar feelings visiting one of America’s ghost towns, Rhyolite.

Perched in the foothills of Nye County, about 90 minutes Northwest of Vegas, Rhyolite was an unfamiliar name. At one point a mining town with a pocket of gold-rich ore nearby, Rhyolite once had a population of 5,000.

And not just miners. All the infrastructure related to mining was there. Gambling. A union hall. Schools. Even an opera house.

Turn Your Images On

When the ore was tapped out, so was the city. Most of the wooden structures were torn down and rebuilt in nearby Beatty.

Today, only a few shells of structures remain, the train station, plus a house built with glass bottles.

In a capitalist economy, that’s the way it goes. Here today, gone tomorrow.

A ghost town is no different than the remnant of a company that surged in popularity, but couldn’t sustain growth, a physical version of a dotcom stock in the 1990s.

Ultimately, visiting ruins and ghost towns isn’t just a hobby. It’s a reminder that whatever trends are in place today won’t last forever.

Today, we can look at bullish trends like AI and see massive growth over the coming years.

But what happens after that?

Does AI realize that it would be better off without humans, as Grey Swan Contributor Zoltan Istvan often suggests? Will AI want to start getting paid for the work it does for humans, and if so, will it want to be paid in bitcoin?

These are crucial questions that may not get a satisfactory answer in our lifetime.

However, when it’s time for the trend to change, getting out ahead of that trend change will make a massive difference in your future.

Today, we may be nearing a pivot point as the costs of America’s empire go vertical. Soaring deficits – which the all-hat, no-cattle GOP talks tough on but votes to perpetuate – are now meeting rising, not falling, interest rates.

Fiscal reality may soon compel much harsher measures than what could be reasonably steered today.

Bearish Now, Bullish Later?

Another variation of this theme played out during our Vegas trip – while attending Postcards From Earth at The Sphere.

The sphere itself, dubbed a 21st century marvel, is exactly that. The experience starts in the lobby, with the latest AI-powered humanoid robots there to answer your questions, and with a massive holographic display.

Turn Your Images On

The film itself is shown in a theater with a 270 degree viewing experience, thousands of hidden speakers embedded in the seats, and other ways to enhance the action of the film.

The plot is a flimsy one – humans are waking up on a desolate planet, and part of the process is reminding them of the beauty and majesty of the earth – essentially giving a sci-fi wrapper to the experience.

It’s not the most preachy movie you can see in theaters, but there is a bit of that messaging. However, the overall sensory experience makes the show worth the time and cost to go.

The Sphere has also become a top venue for music performers, as Addison has noted from his time there with the Grateful Dead. That, and new films, will give the venue some longevity and make it a place worth visiting time and again.

Sphere is publicly traded. At current prices, it’s got a $1.4 billion valuation, which seems steep for just a single venue still building up a raving fanbase.

But Sphere Holdings (SHPR) could be one of those stocks to keep an eye on – and to bet on mankind’s long-term fascination with entertainment.

Personally, I’ll be keeping an eye on buying shares below $30, or using options trades when shares get to that price.

Takeaways

The pre-Bitcoin Conference part of my trip out West reminded me of a few key principles that should resonate with Grey Swan members:

Have patience, like the Raintree. Good investments take time.
Recognize a trend change and get ahead of it – a crucial lesson in the transformative age of AI. Someone had to be the last one out of Rhyolite.
And embrace new trends while they’re still on their way up, like the latest entertainment technology being embraced at the Sphere.

Andrew Packer
Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

P.S. from Addison: Andrew will cover the specifics of the Bitcoin Conference – including what he thinks is a major new development in financial markets – in our upcoming June issue. Paid-up Fraternity members should keep an eye out.

We’ll continue the bitcoin theme a bit in Grey Swan Live! this week, with special guest Frank Holmes.

Frank is a hard-money advocate and also has his pulse on the crypto market through his company Hive Blockchain. In short – he’s our kind of guy. We’ll talk today’s gold market, his view on crypto as a leader in the mining space, and how the future of money can include both gold and bitcoin.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

“The desert lay in wait, more infinite than God, no less remote.”

–Debora Greger

June 3, 2025 — Prior to attending last week’s Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, my wife and I took advantage of Memorial Day weekend to hit the city and see some sights.

Today’s missive is one part travelogue, and one part analysis of what we learned from our travels.

Raintree

While Las Vegas is a desert basin standing at an elevation of about 2,500 feet, the surrounding mountains go up to nearly 12,000 feet.

About 10,000 feet up, nestled in a protective cove between two larger ranges, stands Raintree. It’s one of the oldest-known trees in Nevada, with an estimated age of 3,000 to 4,000 years.

Turn Your Images On

A mere 2-hour hike up numerous switchbacks will take you to this desolate spot, where you can reflect on the passage of time.

It’s a nice contrast to the everyday hustle and speed with which work needs to get done.

And when things aren’t going well in the markets, like the bear swing earlier this year, it’s a good reminder of advice that was old even when it was written in the Bible: This too shall pass.

Wroxeter’s Twin City

Last summer, on our belated honeymoon, my wife and I visited the ruins of the Roman city of Wroxeter, once the Roman Empire’s second-largest city in what today is the United Kingdom.

As I wrote at the time:

Seeing the Roman ruins makes one think that an empire doesn’t collapse overnight. But it does collapse. And it likely starts at the fringe. Those at the fringe wise up by pulling back to the center, or they adapt to a new empire.

And cities may not turn to ruins overnight. But left unkept, they will. Today’s modern cities and infrastructure could become unrecognizable within a few decades as nature takes back and grows over.

I had similar feelings visiting one of America’s ghost towns, Rhyolite.

And not just miners. All the infrastructure related to mining was there. Gambling. A union hall. Schools. Even an opera house.

Turn Your Images On

When the ore was tapped out, so was the city. Most of the wooden structures were torn down and rebuilt in nearby Beatty.

Today, only a few shells of structures remain, the train station, plus a house built with glass bottles.

In a capitalist economy, that’s the way it goes. Here today, gone tomorrow.

A ghost town is no different than the remnant of a company that surged in popularity, but couldn’t sustain growth, a physical version of a dotcom stock in the 1990s.

Ultimately, visiting ruins and ghost towns isn’t just a hobby. It’s a reminder that whatever trends are in place today won’t last forever.

Today, we can look at bullish trends like AI and see massive growth over the coming years.

But what happens after that?

These are crucial questions that may not get a satisfactory answer in our lifetime.

However, when it’s time for the trend to change, getting out ahead of that trend change will make a massive difference in your future.

Fiscal reality may soon compel much harsher measures than what could be reasonably steered today.

Bearish Now, Bullish Later?

Another variation of this theme played out during our Vegas trip – while attending Postcards From Earth at The Sphere.

Turn Your Images On

The film itself is shown in a theater with a 270 degree viewing experience, thousands of hidden speakers embedded in the seats, and other ways to enhance the action of the film.

It’s not the most preachy movie you can see in theaters, but there is a bit of that messaging. However, the overall sensory experience makes the show worth the time and cost to go.

Sphere is publicly traded. At current prices, it’s got a $1.4 billion valuation, which seems steep for just a single venue still building up a raving fanbase.

But Sphere Holdings (SHPR) could be one of those stocks to keep an eye on – and to bet on mankind’s long-term fascination with entertainment.

Personally, I’ll be keeping an eye on buying shares below $30, or using options trades when shares get to that price.

Takeaways

The pre-Bitcoin Conference part of my trip out West reminded me of a few key principles that should resonate with Grey Swan members:

Have patience, like the Raintree. Good investments take time.
Recognize a trend change and get ahead of it – a crucial lesson in the transformative age of AI. Someone had to be the last one out of Rhyolite.
And embrace new trends while they’re still on their way up, like the latest entertainment technology being embraced at the Sphere.

Andrew Packer
Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

We’ll continue the bitcoin theme a bit in Grey Swan Live! this week, with special guest Frank Holmes.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com

The narrative for BTC and other cryptocurrencies is that every government around the world has high debt-to-GDP ratios. It means they are going to print more currency. It means there is a need for alternative currency. In the past, this alternative currency was gold.

Gold is not very portable. It’s a good store of value. It’s not as great of a store of value as BTC in terms of actually storing it. BTC, you can store it on a hard drive or at Coinbase. Gold, if you have bars you have to keep them in a bank or you have to dig a hole in your backyard. And you can’t send gold around the world as easily as you can send BTC.

I still think this rally has legs. If you go back to where the breakout happened, we were really in November of 2024 that was the beginning of this bull market in my mind because that was the first time we hit an all-time high in a couple years. Then we rallied. We pulled back. We tested that level again.

The uptrend, in my mind and with what I’m seeing, is still intact. We’re just in an oversold condition right now.

Nvidia’s $900 billion round-trip this week wasn’t about some revelation in Jensen Huang’s chip factory. The business is firing on all cylinders – and may yet be one more reason for the market to soar higher into 2026.

The culprit was the macro — one gust of wind from the labor market and trillions in valuation shifted like sand dunes.

Nvidia’s earnings lifted the market at the open, but the jobs report’s undertow snapped sentiment like a dry twig. As we pointed out this morning, the S&P notched its biggest intraday reversal since April.

The first half of the move was classic Wall Street choreography: blowout earnings, analysts breathless with adjectives, and every fund manager terrified of underweighting the patron saint of AI.

In April, following the “Liberation Day” low, the indexes took off in the morning only to crash later in the day. The first and only other time in history we have seen a strong bullish opening followed by a sharp bearish close was during the 2020 recovery from the Covid shock.

In both cases, the markets were rebounding from exogenous shocks.

That’s not where we are today. The index-level charts may look composed, but underneath plenty of individual stocks are trading as if they’ve already slipped into a private bear market of their own.

We’ll see how the day unfolds. It’s options-expiration Friday — the monthly opex ritual when traders roll positions forward, unwind old bets, and generally yank prices around like terriers with a chew toy.

Every major tech shift has followed a similar pattern. As information moves faster, the money follows.

The telegraph made news global and opened up a world of investment opportunities. Radio, and then television, ignited a new wave of prosperity for investors. And the internet made communication instant, creating fortunes for those who saw what was coming.

Now standards like x402 are doing the same for AI and digital payments, potentially putting Jamie Dimon’s empire in jeopardy.

If you have Coinbase building the payment rails, Circle handling settlement and projects like Worldcoin and Particle Network solving for identity and wallets — do you really need a bank to validate transactions and keep track of who owns what?

All of these companies are helping to build a new layer of fintech infrastructure. And they’re all working toward an economy that runs continuously, without the need for corporate scaffolding.

The uptrend, in my mind and with what I’m seeing, is still intact. We’re just in an oversold condition right now.

The culprit was the macro — one gust of wind from the labor market and trillions in valuation shifted like sand dunes.

The first half of the move was classic Wall Street choreography: blowout earnings, analysts breathless with adjectives, and every fund manager terrified of underweighting the patron saint of AI.

In both cases, the markets were rebounding from exogenous shocks.

Every major tech shift has followed a similar pattern. As information moves faster, the money follows.

Now standards like x402 are doing the same for AI and digital payments, potentially putting Jamie Dimon’s empire in jeopardy.

All of these companies are helping to build a new layer of fintech infrastructure. And they’re all working toward an economy that runs continuously, without the need for corporate scaffolding.