Best Man's Toast at the Wedding of Gold and Bitcoin, Reception Held at 5.13%

[tapping a glass with a fork, then a second glass, then the microphone]

Okay. Okay, everybody. Sit. The 10-year Treasury has been at the open bar since five o'clock and it is going to be a long night, so let's get this done.

I'm the best man. I have known the groom, Bitcoin, for seventeen years, which in his case means about four lifetimes, and I have watched him fall in love with a new narrative every single cycle. Digital gold. Inflation hedge. Treasury-reserve asset. Nasdaq with a ponytail. Tonight he is marrying the real thing, and I want you all to look at them. Look at them sitting there, side by side, both of them down by double digits from their January and October highs and both of them pretending this is on purpose.

Gold, I love you. You've been around for five thousand years, and in January you hit $5,608 an ounce and everyone at the party cried. This morning you're at $4,126, which is 26% below that record, and you did it while the 10-year yielded 5.13%. Here's the thing, though. You went up 0.28% on Wednesday. At a 5.13% real-money alternative you ticked up. That's the nicest thing anyone has said about you all year, and I'm saying it into a microphone that's feeding back.

[pause for laughter, none arrives]

The groom. Bitcoin. $126,210 at the all-time high, $82,700 this morning, which is 34% below the high, and what a night it was. Late Wednesday he broke through $84,000. Went to $84,808. Cameras flashed. The Fear and Greed Index climbed to 68. A man in the back, you know who you are, texted his wife that he was "basically rich again." Then Tesla and Meta reported, tech futures went red, and the groom slid back to $82,500 inside the same hour. He doesn't hedge the Nasdaq. He is the Nasdaq's emotional support animal.

Let's talk about why we're all here, because I was handed this toast by the planner and the planner is a Fed funds rate of 3.75–4.00%. This was supposed to be the marriage of two assets that protect you from the debasement of money. Wonderful. I loved that thesis. I wrote four paragraphs about it in August. Then oil went to $111, CPI came in at 3.7%, PPI came in at 6.3% year on year, the 10-year ran from roughly 4% to 5.13%, and the market looked at all of this and decided the real risk was being long anything that doesn't pay you. Hence the seating chart. Gold and Bitcoin at the head table. Treasuries at the bar. Everyone else is on their phone.

[sips water]

I want to tell you a story about the day of the honeymoon, which was the CPI print. Eight-thirty a.m. The hot number lands. Gold falls. Bitcoin falls. They fell together within minutes, like two people sharing one umbrella who both step in the same puddle. I'm not saying these two are in love. I'm saying they have the same bad day. If your inflation hedge falls on an inflation print, then you have not bought a hedge. You have bought a mood, and the mood runs on real yields. A 5.13% 10-year against 3.7% CPI is a real return north of one point. For two assets with no coupon, that is a very hard thing to out-argue at a wedding.

[a voice from the crowd: "Dollar's here."]

Oh, the dollar's here. Of course it is. The ex. The dollar index at 101.65, flat, in the corner, not talking to anybody, wearing the same outfit, and no one has the courage to ask it to leave. And over there, the yen. 158. The yen is the cousin nobody invited who shows up every year and quietly drinks more than anyone. The Bank of Japan meets next Thursday and Friday and everyone at that table is already praying.

Now, the vows. I've been asked to read the vows. Gold promises to hold value when the world is on fire, and the world is on fire, Brent is above $111 after a drone hit the Shaybah oilfield and a diplomat said no, the deal is not close, and gold has gone nowhere. Bitcoin promises to be a scarce, apolitical, outside-the-system asset, and Wednesday night he sold off because a car company cut its capex and a social-media company took a $9.89 billion legal charge. I have thought about this for a week and I cannot make that sentence work as a sentence.

[pause]

And yet. And yet. I'll tell you why I'm still up here. Because the reason to own a hedge was never that it works every Thursday. You own it for the Thursday the plumbing breaks. You own it for the day a sovereign auction fails, or a central bank blinks, or a very large French bond has a very bad morning. Moody's tells us about France tomorrow. The FOMC meets Tuesday and Wednesday, and the room appears to be betting on a hold. The PCE lands next Thursday, the same day as the ECB. The midterms are on November 3. This is a very good week to be married to something that doesn't owe anyone anything.

So here's my honest toast, which I wrote on the back of a margin-call notice.

To gold: may the real yield someday get tired and go home.
To Bitcoin: may you someday be priced by something other than whether Meta guided above $73.7 billion.
And to both of you: until the 10-year stops being the most interesting thing in the room, you have to share the umbrella.

[raising glass]

To the happy couple. Please, someone, tell the bond to put the microphone down.