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The Bitcoin Layer

The Bitcoin Layer is a premium markets research provider, covering bitcoin through a global macro lens | Research, Analysis, & Education

Featuring Nik Bhatia, author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Layered Money and USC Marshall School of Business professor.

Subscribe to our research publication and YouTube channel to learn about global macroeconomics, bitcoin, Lightning Network, the monetary and financial system, the Federal Reserve, interest rates, and geopolitics. Most importantly, develop a framework for understanding global markets—connect the dots between economic and financial concepts to see the bigger picture. Look no further for your bitcoin and macro education!

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28 episodes
a few times a week
Avg 38 min
English

Episodes 28

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#299
Friday · 45 min
Healthcare Is Eating 70% Of Federal Tax Revenue
In this episode, Nik welcomes Stu Lackey and Jon Gordon of SOUND HSA for a conversation on the fiscal side of American healthcare. Nik opens with the charts: almost $4 trillion of the just over $5 trillion the government collects in tax revenue now goes to Medicare, Social Security, and other health spending. Stu and Jon explain how the system got here, why the Medicare trust fund is projected to run out in 2032, and why commercial insurance pays far more than Medicare for identical care. They a
#298
Tuesday · 18 min
What Happens If The Fed Hikes Tomorrow
In this Global Macro Update, Nik covers the global bond meltdown and what happens to Liquidity if the Fed hikes rates. He starts with bitcoin losing the trend line he had been tracking and slipping from $80,000 back to $76,000, then turns to crude oil above $106 a barrel and why the energy shock, including declining refinery capacity and diesel prices, is repricing inflation expectations worldwide. Nik explains why yields are spiking in the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, why he thinks a cris
#297
September 11 · 1 hr 2 min
The Bond Meltdown Ends In A Global Money Print
In this Global Macro Update, Nik explains why he believes the current global bond meltdown and liquidity contraction will end in a massive global money print. He walks through the global balance sheet, $600 trillion in real assets, $600 trillion in financialized assets, and $600 trillion of banking balance sheet, set against $350 trillion of debt and only $120 trillion of global GDP, and why that math makes repayment in today's dollars impossible. Nik covers why he expects the print in the Unite
#296
September 8 · 31 min
The Most Important Inflation Report Of The Year
In this episode, Nik explains why he thinks this week's inflation data is the most important economic release of the year, with PPI and CPI landing days before the Fed's September 16 decision. He covers why treasury bills lead the Fed and have been pricing hikes since May, how Kevin Warsh ending forward guidance leaves the market guessing into every meeting, and why core CPI running at 0.2% a month makes an immediate hike unlikely while a 0.4% print would change everything. Nik also lays out why
#295
September 4 · 27 min
One Level Decides Bitcoin’s Bull Market
In this episode, Nik covers the strong jobs report and whether it is enough to push the Fed toward a rate hike. He explains why the two-year yield near 4.38% shows the market pricing in hikes more aggressively than at any point since the election, and why he thinks the Treasury and the Fed will instead find a way to force front-end rates lower, given an interest burden approaching a quarter of tax revenue. Nik also covers the 4.81% level on the ten-year, why a flattening yield curve signals dema
#294
September 1 · 31 min
Something Just Broke the Bond Market
In this episode, Nik covers the chaos in global government bond markets, with yields rising from the United States to Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. He explains what actually drives bond yields, why inflation is structurally higher in 2026 than in the last fifteen years, and why Kevin Warsh told G20 finance leaders that the global savings glut is reversing into an investment surge. Nik walks through how the AI buildout is pulling capital out of treasuries, why NVIDIA chips are b
#293
August 28 · 18 min
Bitcoin Just Failed Three Times
In this video, Nik covers the market reaction to Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech, starting with the two-year yield pushing back toward its highs near 4.35% and what that says about the market pricing in rate hikes. He explains why the yield curve flattening from 50 to 37 basis points on the week is the move he finds most important, how a flattening curve prices growth out of the economy, and why Michael Howell's read frames it as a premium for safe assets. Nik also revisits the recession call
#292
August 26 · 1 hr 2 min
You've Been Drinking Fiat Wine (And You Feel It) with Ben Justman
In this episode, Nik welcomes Ben Justman, founder of Peony Lane Wine in Paonia, Colorado, the highest wine region in North America. Ben explains how he learned winemaking on his father's farm, why high elevation and dry farming shape his Pinot Noir, and why the 73 ingredients American winemakers can add without putting them on a label led Nik to call it fiat wine. Ben shares that 30 to 50% of his customers pay in bitcoin. Nik covers why the Treasury buybacks are not material, why Bessent has sa
#290
August 19 · 23 min
Global Macro Update: The Real Reason Bitcoin Just Ripped
In this Global Macro Update, Nik covers the financial war he sees playing out across treasuries and currencies, and why bitcoin popped above $67,000 on the back of it. He walks through the trend lines he is watching, and why the zone between $70,000 and $82,000 is the work bitcoin has to do before a technical bull market emerges. Nik explains why he calls Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the Secretary of Volatility, where he thinks Bessent's lines in the sand sit on the dollar and the ten-year y
#291
August 12 · 22 min
Bitcoin Just Went Vertical (Is The Bear Over?)
In this episode, Nik covers bitcoin's 22% week and a run that took price to just shy of $80,000. He walks through the multi-year trend line connecting the FTX lows to the start of the ETF bull market, why bitcoin generates most of its returns in short concentrated bursts, and the bullish divergence that showed up before this move. Nik explains why he thinks the real driver was not the Treasury buyback but the yen intervention and the developing US-Japan monetary alliance, and why Kevin Warsh low
#289
August 11 · 34 min
Russia Is Now Legalizing Bitcoin for Trade with Joe Consorti
In this episode, Demian welcomes back Joe Consorti for a conversation on the Clarity Act and what it means for bitcoin. Joe explains the bill's three buckets, how it would separate commodities from securities and put bitcoin under the CFTC, and why he sees that as a win for investor protections rather than price. He covers why the bill has stalled in the Senate over ethics concerns, why he thinks that fight is now ideological, and why the stablecoin rails it would create make it bullish long ter
#288
August 7 · 23 min
Self Custody Is Not Dead with Stacie Waleyko
In this episode, Demian welcomes back Stacie Waleyko, a bitcoin developer with the Bitcoin Dev Project, on the Coldcard entropy vulnerability and the ongoing theft of funds. Stacie explains how hardware wallets are supposed to source randomness, why affected devices fell back to a weaker software path, and why anyone with funds from a post-2021 Coldcard should move them now. She covers the suspicion that attackers used an open weight model to grind through the reduced key space, how a licensing
#287
August 5 · 39 min
Why Jack Mallers Walked Away From Twenty One
In this episode, Nik welcomes Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, for a conversation on his exit from Twenty One. Jack describes the guilt and humility of stepping away from a company whose vision he says did not work, and where Strike sits between an operating company like Coinbase and a conviction vehicle like Strategy. He shares his reaction to the Coldcard vulnerability, which he calls a horror because the victims did everything right, and why he still does not think self-custody is dea
#286
August 3 · 43 min
Tracing the Stolen Coldcard Bitcoin w/ Galaxy's Alex Thorn
In this episode, Nik welcomes back Alex Thorn of Galaxy Research on the Coldcard key generation vulnerability and the theft that followed. Alex explains how a March 17, 2021 firmware change left the devices silently defaulting to a much weaker random number generator, a bug that went unfound for five years, and why the victims are self-custody holders who never leaked a key or made a mistake. He walks through Galaxy's on-chain tracing across three confirmed waves totaling roughly 1,350 bitcoin,
#285
July 31 · 25 min
Coldcard Wallet Hack: What Happened and What to Do Now
In this episode, Nik and TBL's Demian Schatt cover a breaking security situation: a seed-generation vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets that has exposed some bitcoiners to theft, with reports of wallets being swept over the last twenty-four hours. Nik, speaking as a researcher rather than a cryptographer, explains how bitcoin seed phrases are generated, why the entropy behind a seed is what keeps it safe, and how Coldcard's default seed generation left certain users vulnerable while those
#284
July 29 · 33 min
Kevin Warsh Just Blew Up How the Fed Works
In this Global Macro Update, Nik covers today's FOMC decision and Kevin Warsh's press conference, where the new Fed chair reaffirmed the 2% inflation target as a firm goal and made clear he is steering the Fed away from forward guidance. Nik explains why Warsh took credit for the recent rise in Treasury yields, calling it healthy price discovery, and why Warsh now says the Fed will look to the Treasury market for signal rather than telling markets what it will do. He also covers the yield curve
#283
July 28 · 1 hr 10 min
The Great Unwinding Wall Street Isn’t Pricing In with Matt Dines
In this episode, Nik welcomes back Matt Dines to lay out his thesis that the global order built after World War Two is being reset. Matt walks through the signals he is watching: the Kuwaiti pipeline deal with Blackstone, KKR, and Brookfield that reroutes energy toward Europe, the US-China rare earths truce and its expiring clock, and the chokepoints from Hormuz to the Red Sea. He connects rising real yields, a flattening curve, and dollar strength to that same reconfiguration, then turns to the
#282
July 22 · 51 min
The $45,000 Bitcoin Everyone Fears Is Getting Less Likely
In this episode, Nik walks through the latest bitcoin research from Johan Bergman, head of bitcoin research at The Bitcoin Layer, using the charts inside TBL Pulse. He explains Johan's state grid, which plots bitcoin on valuation and trend, and why the framework currently places bitcoin in disbelief territory, a zone where, together with capitulation, bitcoin has spent roughly 40% of its life. Nik covers why bulls bracing for $45,000 are facing data that makes it less likely, and why the 200-day
#281
July 17 · 1 hr 5 min
Global Macro Update: The Dollar Shortage Pushing Asia Towards Crisis
In this Global Macro Update, Nik returns from teaching his summer bitcoin and AI course at USC to a market waking up after the World Cup lull. He makes the case for a global dollar shortage behind the dollar's continued strength, with stress surfacing across Asia: India's push to pull in overseas dollars, a sharp correction in Korea's KOSPI, and the Japanese yen at its weakest level since 1990. He then turns to the pressure building in hyperscaler and AI corporate bonds, Apple overtaking Nvidia
#280
July 10 · 39 min
Michael Saylor Sold the Bitcoin Bottom
In this episode, Nik welcomes CoinDesk analyst James Van Straten to discuss why he believes bitcoin's bear market may be nearing its end. James walks through ETF flows that have held firm despite months of outflows, the rotation of capital out of AI and semiconductor names like NVIDIA, and where that money could head next. The conversation turns to Michael Saylor's decision to sell bitcoin near the lows, the role hedge funds played in pressuring Strategy through STRC, and on-chain data showing r

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