✨🪙Why gold is leaving Bitcoin in the dust

This financial cycle, gold is handily winning the safe-haven showdown against Bitcoin. Over the past year, the cryptocurrency has cratered roughly 46%, sliding toward $63,000, while gold has surged about 32%, now changing hands near $4,376 an ounce.

Bitcoin’s headwinds are only intensifying as global bond yields hit their highest levels since July 2008, before Satoshi Nakamoto even penned the white paper. The August 13 auction of 30-year US Treasuries told the story, yields spiked to 5.216%, a peak not seen since 2001, while investor demand limped in below average.

👉 When real yields rise, money gravitates toward assets that either generate dependable cash flow or boast a centuries-old track record as a store of value. In that light, government debt and gold simply look more compelling than Bitcoin. And with that, Bitcoin's crown as the ultimate hedge against US fiscal recklessness is starting to tarnish.

Here, gold holds a clear ace, without reliance on fragile tech infrastructure, zero counterparty risk, and a permanent perch in central bank vaults. Bitcoin, by contrast, continues to trade like a risk asset whenever rates and yields climb.

So, when real panic sets in, investors are still reaching for the shiny metal, not the digital one.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

❤️📉 Epstein Coalition outspent Iran 100 to 1, still couldn’t win

Iran “was able to manage a war at one one-hundredth of the enemy’s expenditure, ultimately securing victory for the warriors of Islam” against US-Israeli aggression, IRGC deputy commander Mostafa Izadi said Monday.

“The world’s greatest military power and the backstop of NATO went to war with the Islamic Republic, but Iran endured and stood firm against its enemies,” who have now been “weakened both regionally and globally,” Izadi said.

How accurate is the 1/100th estimate?

Surprisingly, not at all far off.

SIPRI says Iran’s baseline defense spending was $7.4B in 2025, about 2% of nominal GDP. The sum is equivalent to ~$80.50 per person per year. Accounting for the IRGC, Basij and other military, paramilitary and security formations, the IISS estimates that Iran spends ~3.8% of its GDP ($17-21B) on defense, broadly defined.

And the US? $954B in spending in 2025 (2.9% of nominal GDP, $2.7k for every single man, woman and child), i.e. ~98 times more than Iran.

How does Iran do it?

1️⃣ a wholly government-run, self-sufficient defense industrial base, controlled by the state, not controlling the state through lobbying and kickbacks to push overpriced equipment

2️⃣ Asymmetric thrift versus technological over-engineering as the overarching principle of production. When you shoot down used sedan-priced drones with moped-derived engines using multi-million-dollar interceptor missiles, costs add up fast

3️⃣ Laser-sharp geostrategic focus instead of global imperial overstretch – with Iran using its mountainous geography to its advantage to create autonomous, hard to spot and strike missile cities, cavernous naval bases, and other sites that can't be effectively targeted using anything but the heaviest bunker-busters – hence Trump’s embarrassing inability to reopen Hormuz Strait

4️⃣ Vietnam-style metrics for victory, where the winner isn’t the side that accrues more kills and damage on a buggy, AI-powered analytics scoreboard, but imposes unsustainable financial, material and reputational burdens on the enemy, ultimately forcing them to give in.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🤖 🇨🇳🏅 More than 2,000 humanoid robots are set to compete in Beijing as China hosts World Humanoid Robot Games

📝 Battle Beagle: "Those are frontline shock troops for 2030 and beyond."

📎 Insider Paper