Why Is Everyone Suddenly Agreeing We Should Tackle Unfair Trade Practices?

Today’s letter is brought to you by Consensus!

Consensus is Crypto’s Most Influential Event

20,000 of the world’s most ambitious builders and boldest investors are coming to Consensus to make connections and shape the future of the digital economy in Toronto this May 14-16, 2025.

Here’s a glimpse at what’s ahead:

* New! Bitcoin & Mining Summit: Discover Bitcoin’s potential with insights on energy, hardware, L2s, ETFs, and more

* World-Class Content: Gain and grow with firsthand advice from 400 expert speakers on Web3, Crypto, and AI

* Business & Dealmaking: Shake hands and set meetings onsite with high-caliber VCs, institutions, startups, and enterprises

With over ten years of seeing tens of thousands of attendees, Consensus remains your best bet for market-moving intel, meaningful connections, and career-defining deals. You can’t afford to miss it.

To investors,

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on a heater this weekend. First, he called out the media for their lopsided coverage of recent volatility in financial markets. Bessent said in an interview with ABC:

"There was a story ten days ago that said this is the worst April for the stock market since the Great Depression. Ten days later, the Nasdaq is now up on the month of April, and I haven't seen a story that says 'stock market has biggest bounce back ever.'"

Regardless of whether you like the current administration or not, you have to acknowledge the coverage has been biased to say the least. Most investors are not looking to inject their politics into their portfolio. They want to understand the facts of the current situation, combined with the probability of what is going to happen in the future, so they can correctly position themselves to profit.

Bessent wasn’t done there though.

He went on to explain the barbell economy that makes of up the United States of America:

“The U.S. has a barbell economy. We have a financial system and tech sector that's the envy of the world. On the other side, we're a natural resource economy led by energy. In between is where working class Americans have lost out — and we want to fix that.”

By reiterating his commitment to the working class, Bessent is clearly articulating exactly what the goal of this administration’s economic policies are. Frankly, the people who are critiquing the policies tend to agree on the admirable goal, yet they disagree on the path to achieve these goals.

Take Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC and NY Times — he was on the All-In podcast recently and most people were surprised to hear Sorkin and David Sacks agree on the high-level strategic goals. Take a listen:

It is obvious that we need more conversations like this in America — smart, successful people having open dialogue about current events. Some of the people agree some of the time. Other people disagree some of the time. But we are all more similar than different, so it is powerful for these types of podcast episodes to be recorded and published — kudos to everyone involved in this one.

Let’s go back to something David Sacks said in that clip though:

“The fact that you’re saying that you don’t disagree with where Trump is trying to get to, but it’s mostly just tactical, is a huge shift in the conversation.”

So what exactly is the goal? Well, we got more clarity on that this weekend — President Trump said multiple times he wants to cut taxes for a large portion of American citizens. He started the weekend by posting it on Truth Social:

Then he followed that up with an interview yesterday where he said “We're gonna cut taxes for the people of this country. It'll take a little while... it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut. I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.”

As expected, the supporters of the administration think massive tax cuts are right around the corner. The critics believe Trump is blowing smoke and won’t be able to cut taxes at all. The truth is somewhere in-between in my opinion. Tax cuts will probably happen, but they will take longer than expected and they won’t be complete elimination of federal income tax.

It won’t matter though — millions of Americans who make $200,000 or less would welcome a lower tax rate. I don’t blame them. And lower taxes means more money in people’s pocket, which leads to more consumption and economic growth. Again, there is plenty of disagreement on the tactical decisions, but almost every person I know thinks it would be powerful to cut taxes for majority of Americans without losing government revenue.

If you remember, the state of Mississippi announced back in March they would be eliminating the state income tax. That is just one example in recent history. The Governor said at the time “our people should be awarded for hard work, not punished.”

You are not going to find many people who disagree with that sentiment.

So this brings me to the market reaction from the administration’s economic policies — everyone thinks financial assets have been suffering, but the exact opposite is true. Since the close of the stock market on Liberation Day, the S&P 500 is up. Gold is up. Bitcoin is up. Inflation is down. And job creation is up.

Now we are only talking about a little more than three weeks, so no one should be taking victory laps just yet, but these positive results highlight how the market is seeing the current state of economic policy. Add in one or two interest rate cuts by the summer, combined with a few announcements of trade deals with foreign countries, and I anticipate we will see asset prices right back to all-time high levels.

Lets see what happens. Hope you all have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.

- Anthony Pompliano

Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management

🚨 READER NOTE: Someone on our team built a personal CFO for anyone to use for free.

The product uses AI models to track your net worth, analyze your portfolio, answer any questions you have about your finances, and make suggestions on how you can improve. You can text, email, or call the CFO too which is really cool.

Sign up on this waitlist if you want to be invited to beta test the product:

Will Institutions Drive The Next Bitcoin Surge?

Jordi Visser is a macro investor with over 30 years of Wall Street experience. He also writes a Substack called “VisserLabs” and puts out investing YouTube videos.

In this conversation we discuss what is happening with bitcoin, Wall Street participation, why the global monetary order is shifting, heading to the bitcoin standard, robots, tariffs, and how Jordi sees the future unfolding

Enjoy!

Podcast Sponsors

* Figure Markets — Trade, borrow, and earn on your crypto with full transparency. The future of finance isn’t TradFi or DeFi—it’s both. Learn more about Figure Markets!

* Core - Earn trustless Bitcoin yield. No bridging. No lending. Just HODLing. Begin Staking Your Bitcoin.

* Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit Simple Mining here.

* Reed Smith - Smart legal solutions for complex disputes, transactions, and regulations. Learn more at www.reedsmith.com.

* Bitwise - America’s largest crypto index fund manager and the only Bitcoin ETF issuer that publishes its wallet address plus donates 10% of profits to open source developers. Learn more at BitwisePomp.com

* BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $1,000 in rewards.

* BitcoinOS - The operating system for bitcoin applications powered by zero-knowledge technology. Check out @BTC_OS on twitter to learn more.

* Gemini - The future is being built today. Go Where Dollar’s Won’t. With Gemini.

* Xapo - Xapo Bank is the only way to bank with Bitcoin.

* Polkadot is a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Innovation leader, making it a preferred choice for big names.

You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren't finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pomp.substack.com/subscribe