Bond yields, crypto catalysts, AI utility, and the ATM analogy discussed on Digital Asset News NFA Live
A live panel discussion on Digital Asset News featuring hosts Rob and Ben, moderated by a third host, covering bond markets, crypto outlook, social media doomerism, and AI adoption.
Summary
Rob and Ben join a moderated live discussion covering four main topics: the current bond yield environment, whether social media algorithms push audiences toward doomerism, what catalysts might lift crypto markets, and how useful AI actually is in daily life. Ben argues that bond yields are likely near a local top and that metals bottoming will be the signal to watch. Rob draws an extended analogy between ATM adoption in the 1970s and today's AI disruption, arguing that technology historically creates more jobs than it destroys — and that the combination of new technology with supportive regulation produces economic booms. Both hosts express measured optimism about AI while cautioning against giving it access to financial accounts.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Bond Yields: Are We Near a Local Top?
Ben: I think there will be a local top in yields, at least. That probably will last for a while. If you remember, we had one in 2023 that lasted for three years. I think we're about to have another one here really, really soon. My guess is that it happens before or around the midterms. I think that's going to be around peak fear on rates for a while.
One of the reasons you're seeing yields surge right now is because the Fed was originally looking to raise rates in October, at least according to the markets. The markets thought the Fed was going to raise rates in October, and then following the soft PCE report and the soft labor market report, it has kind of allowed the Fed to back off and take a slower approach. But I don't really think the market necessarily buys the soft PCE report. PCE is still going up, and the reason it came in soft was because they revised how it was calculated — which is kind of an irritating thing that they do, and this is not the first time. Even the way they calculate inflation is different than it used to be in the 1970s.
I think the bond vigilantes have been revolting because the 2-year yield is at like 4.8–4.9%, meaning we're probably not really in restrictive territory right now as far as monetary policy goes. So I'm thinking maybe right around the next FOMC is going to be around peak fear. A lot of times, if you look at 2022 and 2018, what happens is that yields will top sometime in October and then kind of go back up around the midterms and then fall down right after. That is my guess as to what's going to happen.
As far as markets go, normally commodities like gold and silver go down when rates are going up — when the dollar is going up, metals go down. And that's what they've been doing. But what you look for to get the sign that rates are topping is watch for metals to bottom, because normally metals bottom at or before yields top and they start showing strength. Then normally risk assets like crypto don't really start showing real weakness until after rates have topped and started coming back down.
It's a little counterintuitive. You would think that rising long-end yields would take risk assets down with them, and that is sometimes true in certain regimes — that was true in 2023 — but in 2026 it's actually been the opposite. Every one of Bitcoin's lows this year actually occurred while the 10-year was going down, and while the 10-year was going up, Bitcoin was actually also going up. I think the reason for that, if you had to come up with one, is that as the long end goes up, perhaps it just means things are fine — the economy is fine, rates are going higher, the economy can handle it. When rates are going down, it's more so because there's a growth scare. So I would expect the long end to top probably within the next month or so, which means things like bonds — I know people talked a lot about TLT — that stuff in my opinion is looking to put in a low very, very soon.
Host: Very interesting. And I guess the midterms are a real factor given that there's so much uncertainty around them — what Trump and the administration might do in the lead-up to them, what they might do after them, quite aside from what the result might be. A lot of people seem to think the Democrats will sweep it, but we just don't know. That uncertainty is probably feeding into the yield equation, and perhaps it will unwind a bit once we actually know who controls Congress.
Ben: Right.
Social Media Algorithms and Doomerism
Host: I want to change gear a little bit and talk about social media and how it affects us. This gets talked about a lot, but I wanted to get your opinions on it as fellow content creators as much as anything else. Are social media algorithms making us too doomer? Are we just inclined to make content and view content that says everything's going down the toilet, everything's going to collapse, we're all going to be poor and dead and enslaved by AI within three years? And on the flip side, when you consider all the advances being made in technology — biotechnology, AI, all these things — should we not perhaps be a little bit more optimistic about the future? Rob, can I start with you? Are we too doomer?
Rob: ATMs.
Host: ATMs?
Rob: So what I'm talking about here is this doomerism that we see everywhere. It's because whatever we click on and whatever we view, we're going to get more of that stuff. That's just how Facebook works, how YouTube works, how X works. So if you have a slight inclination for doomerism, you're going to get that 24/7, 365.
I've been around a long time. I'm old and everything hurts. But I will say this: I was around before the internet, before computers. If you had a computer in your house back when I was growing up, it was like, "What are you, a millionaire?" But it really comes down to ATMs.
Back in the 70s, we were supposed to lose a ton of jobs because of technology that was coming forth, and that technology was ATMs. No one really saw it coming, because before that you had to go to a bank branch to get your actual money. So in 1970, as far as jobs go, there were 300,000 tellers. And they thought when ATMs came out around 1968–1972, the number would start to go down. But the exact opposite happened. By 2010, you had 400,000 ATMs installed and 600,000 tellers. So what happened?
Three things happened. First, it became cheaper. ATMs cut the staff — and people say, "Well, Rob, that's what it is, you lost jobs." But the most important thing was this: there were cheaper branches to make. That's why you see all these different bank branches everywhere, in your community. And it became better because tellers had to stop counting cash and started helping people. Your branch location is not just a branch location — it's a sales pitch. When you go in, they say, "Here's your money, Mr. Wolf. By the way, can I help you with a loan, a credit card, a savings account?" And before you know it, you're sucked into the banking. And that's the great thing about having these new branches, because it's a lot better to have one down the street than driving 10 or 20 miles to your local branch.
So remember this when it comes to doomerism, because we're going to see a lot of it with AI coming out. Tech replaces tasks and it creates more jobs. AI to me is the next ATM.
Think of it this way. In Puerto Rico, we have a big brain drain. A lot of the doctors and lawyers go to the mainland, so we don't have as many as we're supposed to have here. Wouldn't it be great if, with AI, you could make a new branch in half or a third or a quarter of the cost, and then one doctor could service many branches because it takes a lot less time and effort? That's the beauty of where we could go with AI.
The corporations that are firing their people right now are going to regret it, because all they had to do was train their employees to 10x. Instead of being the status quo, they could have 10xed their company, and I think they screwed up.
And then, real quickly — it comes down to this: tech plus regulation equals boom. Because there's one thing a lot of people forgot about. In 1994, what accelerated the whole thing with ATMs and bank branches? There was a law passed — the Riegle-Neal Act. So you had the tech of ATMs, which reduced the amount of people needed. Then the Act came in and allowed branches to move and make new branches everywhere they wanted to go. Because of those two factors, you had a big boom.
Wouldn't it be great? We've got great technology in crypto. We've got stablecoins that can really do payments, real-world tokenization, real-world assets. If we would just have regulation to either get out of the way or give us some clarity — imagine how much further we would be. Europe is going to pay the price of that. So when I take a look at this, I just think of ATMs.
Host: That's a really interesting analogy. ATMs are something that, in a lot of places — certainly in the UK and here in the UAE — you don't see nearly as many of them because fewer and fewer people seem to be using cash. But you can see how they actually contributed a huge amount to economic growth, because it made it easy for people to get their money and go spend it in the economy. You didn't have to drive to your local branch during opening hours. It just opened up so much more growth.
Rob: And one last thing I'll say — I know people will say technology will wipe out some jobs, and they're right. I don't need a typewriter repairman anymore; that just doesn't exist. The ones that embrace the new tech are the ones that are going to work out. The ones that don't, I think, are going to be swept up by the ones that do.
Host: That's fascinating. And we're going to revisit this in a minute when we talk more about AI. Ben, same question to you — are we sort of pandering to the doomerish side of social media algorithms? Should we be a bit more optimistic about things?
Ben: I also was thinking about ATMs, so Rob — you're welcome.
I think it's good to expand out. A while back on Twitter, I remember just how easy it is to find yourself in an echo chamber, whatever it is. I remember going out and specifically following 20 or 30 accounts that had completely different views than me about things — not just about markets, but about everything. The point was I didn't want to be in an echo chamber, because sometimes it feels like we live in one when we're talking with each other and surrounded by people that care about the same things. But then I go out into the real world and no one cares about 99% of the stuff I even care about.
Sometimes I'm walking in the grocery store and I'm like, "That person has no idea what the price of Bitcoin is by the second. They have no idea what the 10-year yield is. They have no idea where the dollar is trading." And I'm kind of envious of them. I don't think of myself as better — I'm just like, man, that'd be kind of a nice life to not have to think about all that stuff.
So I would say, yeah, I think it's good to kind of expand out a bit and challenge our own opinions, because I've seen it happen with everyone. Everyone has their own little bubble. There are all these micro-influencers in every category, and everyone has these super loyal, dedicated follower bases in some of the most niche things you could ever imagine. And if you meet those fans in real life, they're like, "Wait, you don't know who this is?" And you're like, "No, I don't care about that stuff." I think it's a good thing to not just sit in the doomer chamber.
Host: What a thing — to be walking past someone and think they have no idea Zcash has pumped so much, and yet they're still buying eggs in a grocery store.
Ben: And yet they're still buying eggs in a grocery store. They don't know that their financial future is at risk.
Host: Someone in the comments said "ignorance is bliss," and I could not agree more. From the point of view of a content creator as well — we often feel like we're kind of stuck in this doom loop. We have weekly meetings about what content we're going to do across our channels, and quite often we have this discussion: can we find some good news? What's going really well? And quite a lot of the time it's like, yeah, that would be a really interesting thing to cover, but no one will watch it. We have tried this with videos in the past — the occasional one that tries to be a bit more positive, a good news story. I remember insisting we did a video about Lego, and no one watched it.
Rob: Just label it "dubious speculation" and then people watch.
Host: It's so interesting, because I think a lot of us want to try and find a more positive spin on things, but then no one watches them. So it's that kind of doom loop — what came first, the doomerish content or the people only watching the doomerish content? It just feeds round and round. As audiences, I kind of think we're all our own worst enemies. Our bias seems to be more towards bad news rather than good news. Maybe it's just something hardwired in us by evolution.
What Could Take Crypto Higher?
Host: Okay, speaking of bad news and echo chambers — crypto has had a bit of a slow start to October. What do you gentlemen think we need to take us higher? Is there anything you can point to that might give crypto a bit of a boost? We are now over a week into so-called Uptober and the "up" part of that seems to have gone slightly AWOL. Rob, is there anything on your horizon as a potential good news catalyst?
Rob: Well, just remember October can be replaced with Rectober pretty quickly. I'm going to say the bearish part and everybody's going to get mad because I'm a little bit bearish. If we're not going to go over well — four-year cycles still could play out, and Ben even talked about it. If we see the 10-year, 20-year, 30-year bonds continue to go up — I know Scott Bessent just put in like $148 billion or something like that to buy, which will lower yields and ease the markets — but if we see more of this war and a continuation in Iran, and we start to see the price of diesel continue to go up and fluctuate all over the place, then you're going to see more of an inflation issue. Once we have an inflation issue, then you're going to have the Fed come out — maybe not for the next meeting at the end of October, but in December — and say, "Okay, we've got to raise rates again."
And again, midterms are coming in. I think everything has to get flushed out right now. If you want to compare rates, on the 10-year and 3-month, there is an inversion. And every time we get an inversion of those yields, we hit a recession. That's been going on for over a year now, about 18 months or so. So we should at some point hit that type of thing, and some people are calling for it. The bond vigilantes think it's going to happen.
I think we have to flush everybody out and just move forward. I just want to get through Q4 and the midterms and let's see who wins. It's probably going to be the Democrats in the House. Maybe the Senate flips, and of course that means a lame duck as far as President Trump goes, and then we'll ride out these two years.
Host: Let's see. Ben, same question — is there anything you're looking at to take us higher in crypto specifically?
Ben: Usually it's just time that we need, right? You have to flush out all the people over a certain length of time. I think the thing next week that people will be watching is the inflation report. That's probably your next big catalyst one way or the other. If it comes in really, really hot, that would probably be a really negative thing for crypto, because it means we're going to have to have higher rates. If it comes in soft, then perhaps that could help give it a boost.
But I think the issue crypto has right now is that there are still so many tailwinds on CPI in the short term that it's going to be constantly fighting that. Inflation is likely going to head higher in the short term. I'm not necessarily in the camp that we're going to have this massive inflationary wave again, but I think it could go high enough just to kind of stall things out for a little bit.
In some ways this is like 2019, and one of the differences between now and back then is that back then when crypto was coming down and settling, they were lowering rates — whereas this time they're raising rates. So monetary policy has a pretty large effect on this.
And the other thing — because you guys mentioned altcoins — the thing last cycle that caught a lot of people by surprise was that in the bull market, Bitcoin outperformed basically everything. A lot of people thought the altcoin market would eventually catch up, and it didn't. That is proof right there that not every cycle has to have an alt season associated with it. I know I sounded crazy last cycle talking about that, but hopefully now people can look at it and be like, "All right, there is some merit to the idea that restrictive monetary policy could make it so that alts underperform." And if it can happen once, it could theoretically happen again.
My guess is that it is going to happen again, but it won't last as long as it did last time. Last time it was the entire cycle. My guess is it's more like half a cycle where restrictive policy takes back over and we see Bitcoin do better than altcoins. Just something to consider.
I think a lot of it comes down to monetary policy and liquidity. Liquidity is the biggest one because I think crypto really reacts to that. And the hard thing right now is that there's not really a reason for the Fed to print when the stock market is just at all-time highs week after week. I feel crazy buying index funds every single month because I keep thinking we'll have a correction at some point, and it just keeps going higher. Who knows how long it'll last before that gives up. But I think you can't really have much looser monetary policy until there's weakness in the stock market.
Host: That's a good point. I feel the same with buying stocks and index funds. People have been talking about a crash for such a long time now, especially an AI-related crash. There is a very good chance we're going to get one of those, but you can just lose out on so much by being sidelined waiting for it. It'll come, but who knows — the whole thing could keep chugging along for quite a while.
Ben: I've been buying index funds monthly for like a decade now. They'd have to drop a lot to get back to where they were in 2022–2023. That'd be a really, really bad drop. I think as an investor, everyone just has to recognize that at some point they will be involved in drops in the stock market. But as the famous saying goes, there's more money lost in betting on stock market crashes than in the actual stock market crashes themselves. If you do avoid it, you probably also missed out on a lot of the gains that preceded it — constantly betting on it to drop. That's why I don't even try to time the stock market. I do try to time the Bitcoin market sometimes, with mixed success, but with the stock market I don't even try.
Host: Rob, are you the same? I know you're a big advocate of DCA in crypto — are you basically the same with stocks as well?
Rob: Yeah. I use this website — it's called ITC — and I get these risk levels, and I can do that for stocks as well, which is pretty nice. With Tesla, Google, Cloudflare, the big ones — I like those things and it's worked out pretty well. But just to piggyback on what Ben said about recessions — if you just look at this graphic, this is where all the money's made. If we do get a recession, I know it's a horrible word, but they average out 10 months. And of course, once you're in a recession, it's a little bit too late because they're calling it late, and then once you're out of recession, they don't usually get that right either. You can see a much smaller time frame. If you could just weather the storm, like you've done watching the video every four years in these cycles, you're going to be just fine. And actually, I think some people might welcome some big dips and pullbacks.
Host: Yeah, time in the market beats timing the market, as the old cliche goes.
AI: How Useful Is It Really?
Host: There's a lot of debate at the moment over how useful AI really is. Some people are saying they're saving hours every single day by getting agents to handle mundane tasks — booking restaurants or flights, handling emails, etc. While other people are saying, "What's all the fuss about? I don't mind booking my own flights. Why would I get AI to do it?" I'm curious where both of you stand on this. I know you both use AI — we've talked about that a lot on this show — but are you letting it into your inbox? Are you giving it access to your computer, or are you just using an LLM interface like Claude or ChatGPT to answer questions? Rob, can I go to you first?
Rob: The easy answer is you shouldn't let AI do anything because it can destroy everything within your ecosystem. But I remember the same thing was said about online purchases. Remember that? You can't use your debit card because everything's going to get stolen. And then people were like, "Well, what's this thing called Amazon? Wow, I can get this delivered. How fast? That's great." And now everything you buy on the internet, that's pretty much how it goes.
As far as AI goes, I use it for specific things. I don't give it access to my bank or trading accounts. But for me, I use it for the basics — for short-term and medium-term rentals, for doing these videos, for doing taxes and putting everything together for my CPA, to make sure the different sites I have — I have over eight websites — are actually paying the best price. And I did this — I've eliminated thousands of dollars every year just by using Cloudflare, AWS, Google and their sub-standards to pull everything over. People would say, "Well, Rob, if you do that, who's your developer? How do you make sure things don't break?" That's what Claude's for. I just record myself, I tell Claude, it does the graphics, and off I go. I just don't allow it to have access to my bank accounts, credit cards, and things like that. If it wants to see a statement to verify that a transaction was good, I will show a CSV or a PDF. That's how I've done things.
Host: Interesting. That video had 115,000 views in four days.
Rob: That's almost like one Ben Cowan video. That's crazy.
Rob: And I just don't compare different models and theoreticals. I just show you what I do to make my life a hell of a lot easier and save money.
Host: Fantastic. Check it out, folks. Ben, same question — to what extent are you letting AI into your life? I know you're a busy man, you've got a big family, you're organizing the ITC conference in Miami next month in November. Presumably you've just delegated every single mundane task to AI, right?
Ben: AI gets my kids up, takes them to school, everything else. No. I use it, but it doesn't have access to my entire everything. I know a lot of people that do that and it's been great. For the ITC platform, for instance, AI has a lot of access so that we can build it and make it even better. I use it for helping to plan a lot of things. I just went to New Zealand — I was speaking at TechSummit 2026 in New Zealand — and while I was there, it was basically my travel agent. I just basically said, "These are the things my wife and I like to do and we're going to be here for 10 days — come up with an itinerary for us." And it would do that, and then I'd go in and tweak it. But it was great.
I also use it for making charts — figuring out new things to look at, new ways to look at the market, that kind of stuff. I use it a lot. I don't use it as much as some people, but I still meet a lot of people when I talk about AI and show them what it can do, and they're still surprised. They have no idea. I know that sounds crazy to us because we use it, but there are a lot of people that don't really know that much about it yet. Which means there are probably opportunities there, because a lot of times people think AI will take everyone's jobs, but while it will take some jobs, I think people who know how to use AI will be the ones taking jobs. I think that's kind of the thing. So if people have some free time, I think it'd be useful to go learn how to use this stuff. I think it'd be worthwhile.
Host: Then I think the next model of Claude is supposed to be much better at picking the kids up from school.
Ben: Just make sure you buy enough credits and you'll be fine.
Host: I think the probably the next business cycle after this one will be the robotics one — where we're incorporating AI into robotics. That'd be kind of cool. Really cool, honestly.
Ben: Kind of scary.
Host: Scary. We're living in the Terminator future. But it'd be pretty cool.
Ben: Four years' time, it would just be three Terminators. Imagine the doomerism in that business cycle.
Host: Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet. I love it. That's really interesting. I was following Nick Carter from Castle Island Ventures — big crypto VC, very smart guy — and he was posting quite a lot of stuff about what he gets his AI to do. It's a huge long list. And there was quite a lot of pushback, some of it quite aggressive, being like, "Oh, you crypto guys, you're just idiots getting your AI to do everything." And Nick was pushing back quite a lot, replying to these people. And I just thought — I kind of enjoyed the irony of it. He's saved so much time by getting AI to do all this stuff for him, and how's he spending it? Arguing with people on Twitter about it. Just, dude — go and learn how to play the piano or learn another language. You've saved all this time; use it wisely.