Iran closes its airspace to civilian air traffic.

🇨🇳 China’s trade surplus hit a record $1.2 trillion in 2025

the highest ever and a massive jump from previous years.

Why so huge in 2025?Strong export growth (EVs, solar, batteries, machinery)

Weak domestic demand → more goods shipped abroad
Weaker #yuan helping competitiveness

Global supply-chain shifts favoring Chinese manufacturing

This surplus fuels tensions (US tariffs, EU probes) and gives China huge reserves to invest globally or defend the yuan.

#China #Trade #Economy #Surplus

#Silver to Brent Ratio

One ounce of silver buys 1.37 barrels of oil.

Historically, over 30+ yrs, this wasway lower, like 0.27–0.33 range (oil dominating big time most periods), so we're talking a massive deviation

silver's ripping on industrial demand (solar, EVs, batteries), supply deficits, and momentum, while oil's getting crushed by surplus forecasts and weak macro bears everywhere.

Mean reversion could bite eventually, but right now it's a clear signal capital's fleeing paper for real stuff.

#oott #Silver

Electricity vs. Income…

No such thing as a low energy rich country.

Do you agree?

Does wealth drive energy consumption as much as the graph below implies?

#energy #electricity

Global Copper Market Faces a Massive Supply Gap by 2040

why copper bulls are excited and why supply risks are real?

- Total demand keeps climbing: from ~25 Mt in 2020 → ~42 Mt by 2040

- Mined supply (primary) peaks around 2030 at 27 Mt, then slowly declines without major new projects

- Recycled supply (secondary) stays flat at ~10 Mt

⚠️By 2040, the world needs an additional +14 Mt of new copper supply just to meet demand (the “demand gap” shaded area)

Without massive new mine development (which takes 10–15+ years), supply is set to fall short
Mined production only covers 66% of total supply today the rest is recycling

#Copper #Commodities #Energy #Mining

53 banking associations just wrote themselves a $6.6 trillion protection bill.

They called it the CLARITY Act.

Here is what they do not want you to understand.

Banks pay depositors 0.1% interest. Stablecoin issuers hold Treasury bills earning 4.5%. If stablecoins could pass that yield to users, banks lose the deposit war. They cannot compete. The math is fatal.

So they made competition illegal.

The Kansas City Fed calculated what happens if stablecoins pay competitive rates. Banks lose 25.9% of deposits. $1.5 trillion in lending capacity vanishes. The entire community banking model collapses.

Their solution was not innovation. Their solution was legislation.

The CLARITY Act everyone is celebrating contains Section 404 prohibiting yield payments through any mechanism. Not just from issuers. From exchanges. From affiliates. From partners. Every single pathway to competitive returns, closed by statute.

Brian Armstrong reviewed the 278-page draft for 48 hours. He withdrew Coinbase support at 11pm. The markup was postponed by morning. He saw what Wall Street analysts missed entirely.

This is not crypto regulation.

This is Dodd-Frank for digital assets. Incumbents writing rules that crush competitors. Regulatory capture so brazen they published the lobbying letters on their own websites.

The American Bankers Association. 52 state banking associations. The Community Bankers Council. All coordinating to eliminate an industry they cannot beat in open markets.

Meanwhile China made e-CNY interest-bearing on December 29.

America is banning stablecoin yield while Beijing is paying it.

The crypto industry spent years begging for regulatory clarity.

They got it.

Clarity that $6.6 trillion in deposits will be protected at any cost. Clarity that banks write the rules. Clarity that if you cannot win in markets, you win in Congress.

This is the largest regulatory capture event in American financial history.

And it is being sold as innovation policy.