⬇️ My Thoughts ⬇️
Scarcity Doesn't Make Bitcoin Better Than Gold
Just because something is more scarce, doesn't mean it's more valuable. The number of existing Picasso paintings is much more scarce than Bitcoin - and that number won't increase.
Would you rather have all of Picasso's paintings or all of the Bitcoin? Or maybe that's a bad example. If you own all of the Bitcoin, it's a big question what will the other market participants value it at -- definitely much below the current prices though.
There's a lot more than you can do with gold than with Bitcoin. In fact, the nodes supporting Bitcoin network use gold in their connectors. Not to mention that you can take down Bitcoin, but you can't take down gold (just cut electricity and/or node subnets).
Moreover, saying that gold is "infinite" is wrong technically and practically. There is a big distinction in the amount of gold existent in the universe and Planet Earth, and the amount of gold that's economically viable to obtain.
If your argument on why Bitcoin is better than gold relies heavily on the scarcity aspect - it's probably a weak argument.
As I've explained in my prior posts: the commodities rally isn't over
Gold is back above $5000
Silver is back above $80
Copper is back above $6
Prices below the above remain a buying opportunity
Enjoy!
It’s literally impossible to compete with calculators
- it doesn’t need breaks or sleep or weekends
- it costs sub minimum wage an hour
It’s hard to make the case to hire quants anymore.
The thing I don’t get is why all the financial companies are hiring so many quants still?
(or you can use an an analogy with autopilot and human pilots to answer this question 😄)
AGI Is Perpetually 6-12 Months Away
Anthropic's CEO warned that software engineers will be obsolete in the next 12 months. But then again, he said the same thing about a year ago 😂
It seems that AI is perpetually 6-12 months away from replacing software engineers.
I don't think that people who spread these claims actually understand how much of a gap AI needs to close for this to happen.
It certainly won't happen in the next year.
Don't Be Fooled By Backtest Performance
I've been coming accross of posts on X from accounts showcasing 70%+ returns when backtesting their vibe-coded trading strategies. Don't be misguidaded by those numbers and claims.
Most likely it performs well on historical data, but is random at best with new data.Agents are not that good at developing profitable trading strategies, as they tend to stick 'default' statistical measures like RSI and hope for the best 😄 If it was that easy - everyone would do it, thus erasing any alpha
These vibe-coded models most likely overfitting
No AGI With LLMs In Their Current Form.
Generative models are just one type of models in ML. Neither self-driving cars, nor inference about financial data primarily rely on generative models. Perhaps you can have LLM program that logic on the go, but that would require the LLM to effectively dominate those tasks (i.e. effectively become good at driving a car and being able to build sound financial models via a programming language), and given the probabilistic nature of the inference I don’t think we can have LLMs and agents fully taking over these critical areas. Regarding the probabilistic nature, I’m specifically referring the unsecured/unparameterized probability - it’s hard to modulate the potential error.
Right now, agent setups are very good at boilerplate, repeatable code - and most of the code is like that. Most of software development is already abstracted by various frameworks, and a lot of the softwares do very similar tasks and are implemented in similar ways, following specific patterns. Anecdotally, think of a generic SaaS - there are several competing products that do basically the same thing, because they solve a common problem. Agents/LLMs are already great at predicting code of which they have a lot of examples in their training set. This alone, is a massive productivity boost, especially if you are prototyping/iterating.
To give a more concrete answer, the current tech would probably top out at multi-agent, multi-model and some form of DSL(s). So you would have multiple agents, some of them using distinct models. For example, one model for planning, another model for writing code, another model for debugging, etc. The DSLs would be used for both: customizing agents and models (input) and the model would output the code in a DSL (output). So when you ask the model to generate code, it would output it in a higher-level programming language/DSL, and then that one would either be compiled down/translated into a different target, wether that is machine code or a programming language like Python. The DSL design would be optimized for this “generative development” - in practice it will make things like math-induced security issues more difficult for LLMs to make (e.g. the DSL forces the LLM to use pre-defined cryptographic primitives, and at compilation time type metadata is associated to enforce its correct usage across schemes). So at this tech’s peak, the LLMs probably won’t be outputting their code in directly Python. I don’t mean that this is the peak for generative models or ML field as a whole, but for the current state of the tech and the approaches it uses.
Before the tech tops out, however, I think there will be a security issue at scale, followed by an increased focus on security of agents and the the inferred code. Since many products will be using the same models to generate code, the same flawed security patterns will arise in many places, and it will be “easy” to exploit them at scale. Even with detailed instructions, SOTA models still generate vulnerabilities. Even though most of the code is fine, it takes one small issue in a sensitive place to compromise the system - and if you write any non-trivial code with LLMs, you will run into them. I’ve encountered a lot of this issues myself, and in the code that I’ve reviewed from other developers who wrote their code with LLMs. Proper context helps a lot, but it doesn’t resolve the probabilistic nature of the output.
Regarding getting closer to human-like functionality, it will almost certainly require other ML schemes/approaches in addition to what we have now and further refining and combination of existing approaches. I think we will soon go into meta-models, where a model internally uses other models/sub models to produce the output (in its simplest form, think of a random forest that “choses” the most appropriate sub-model to run or the output which one of the sub-model’s outputs to use for the next step) - this can help mitigate some of the risks arising from the probabilistic nature of the inference. That would require coordinated, specialized agents, powered by meta-models.
Where I think we have a lot to still to gain with the current tech, even if its progress freezes, is education. LLMs provide a novel way to interact with digital information, you can do it in the same way that you would interact with another human - via spoken language. Being able to formulate your very specific questions, in your very specific way and usually getting a correct answer to it still amazes me to this day. If you combine generative models with VR, you get a whole new dimension of experiencing information, allowing to learn more effectively.
AI will follow a much more logarithmic growth than the hype may lead you to believe
We've been perpetually '6 months away from AGI', yet as amazing the SOTA generative models are - we're no where near that.
I don't believe that the current generative ML architectures will be enough to deliver the promises even over the next decade. Generative models have their limits.
There's also a massive AI bubble in the U.S., wit the same entities over promising on results directly benefiting from public funds, which get counted as revenue many times over. Maybe this need a new term like, rerevenuezation (like rehypothecation with bonds) 😄
With that said, I don't think we're anywhere near the full benefits just from the tech we have available up to today. Agentic systems in particular.
Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust is the first US bank to fail in 2026
January 30th 2026: Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust was closed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, appointing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as the receiver.
The failure is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) ≈$20M, but it can changed depending on the price the failed bank's assets are liquidated at.
Back in August 2019 the same bank was formally accused and investigated for unsafe and unsound banking practices by the regulators (FDIC, IDFPR). It was concluded that there were weaknesses in liquidity, solvency, management and asset quality. As a result of that, the bank was forced into a corrective action plan.
Enjoy the price dip across communities
This is, once again, a buying opportunity
My Target For Gold Is At Least ≈7500 USD Per Ounce
I would like to clarify that this is my *minimum*, medium-to-longterm target for this commodity cycle.
Gold reaching $7500 wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. It may happen faster than you think.
Palladium Is A Great Investment In 2026
Palladium already more than doubled since 2025, but its upwards move won't stop here, as it's setup to appreciate against both, USD and gold.
As I've previously explained, the current commodities supercycle will lead to a price increase across the whole set of commodities, which includes precious and industrial metals and their miners. Palladium is very well positioned for the next leg of liquidity inflow.
Against USD, palladium is currently trading at ≈$2075/oz. My 2026 target for Palladium is at least ≈$2500/oz, or up another ≈24% from current price levels. Platinum has recently rebounded from its monthly support line.
Against gold, palladium is in a similar situation, as its rebounding from a monthly support trend line. The current Palladium/Gold ratio is at ≈0.38. I expect it to rebound upwards to at least ≈0.7, meaning that palladium is setup to appreciate against gold. Even if gold retraces in the short-to-medium term, I don't expect that price drop be to neither permanent, nor long-lasting.
There is also an ongoing deficit of palladium supply relative to its demand.
Cherry-picking goes both ways 😉
Copper already up ≈10% on the day
Copper extends its gains to ≈9% on the day, and its appreciating more than gold and silver
A week ago I wrote an article explaining why this upwards move in copper (and copper miners!) was imminent, from both fundamental and technical standpoints.
And don't be alarmed by near-term volatility. Keep the macro picture in mind under the lens of liquidity inflow into the commodity sector. I've explained this extensively in my articles. You can read them all on my website for free (there is also an RSS feed you can subscribe to).
Copper just hit a new all time high, and it's not stopping here
The white rectangle on the chart represents copper's support area for 2026. Copper will have a lot of buying pressure waiting inside that box.
This is a monthly chart, with the support area being formed over the last ≈5 years, since 2021.
A week ago I wrote an article explaining why copper is a great investment in 2026
Today, copper is up ≈5%, hitting a new all time high
The article covers copper's technicals and fundamentals. You can read it here:
https://illya.sh/threads/copper-is-a-great-investment-in-2026-technicals-fundamentals
Today's Commodity Miners Sell-Off Is A Buying Opportunity
I've made numerous such calls in the past, and they were correct 100% of the time. Today, I'm making one of such calls again.
Gold, silver and copper miners are down today, with indices and individual large caps falling by as much as ≈8%, despite the underlying metals remaining in the green. This is exactly the situation where you can leverage the increased volatility in the mining sector to increase your exposure to the underlying metals during an uptrend.
I expect the prices of gold and silver miners indices to increase by ≈30% from current levels within roughly 10 trading weeks from now. It may happen sooner than though - pay close attention to the price action.
It's also possible for the price to dip lower than the current levels before the upwards move described above materializes. This mainly depends on the price action of the precious and industrial metals in the next few weeks, but I don't believe that either one of them has topped for the cycle, thus uptrend resumption is imminent.
I've written several articles explaining why commodities and commodity miners are a great investment for 2026. I suggest you to read them if you haven't done so yet.
Natural Gas Prices Are Very Volatile
It's normal for natural gas prices to increase or decrease sharply. Among others, the demand for it is dependent on weather and subject to seasonality. This is very intuitive: if it's colder, there is an increased demand for heat (fuels), and natural gas is that fuel.
The spike in natural gas prices in January 2026 can be explained by the severe cold/snow storms and their effects on supply, demand and storage across the United States and Europe.
But you don't need to know any of that. All you have to do is open a historical price chart for natural gas.
From 2020 to 2022, natural gas prices increased almost ≈x6.5 in price. Then, from 2022 to 2024, the prices fell by ≈84%, bottoming just ≈6% above the 2020 lows.
Thus, any sources proclaiming that "it is not normal" for NATGas to increase 70% in roughly two weeks, implying that it's a signal of a major distress in the system, are unlikely to be a reliable source on this topic.
"Random forest" is currently my favorite term from financial ML
... TREES MAKE FINANCIAL DECISIONS NOW?? 🌳😄
And people still think that silver and Bitcoin are within the same category of assets
(hint: they're not)
And this is why copper is currently a good idea to complete gold and silver 😄
Silver Miners Are Up ≈12% Since My Recommendation From 4 Days Ago
On January 18th 2026 I wrote an article explaining why silver mining stocks are undervalued, and how you should expect a price increase/breakout in the sector soon. 4 days after I published the article, the silver miners index is up more than 10%, and some individual large-cap names like Hecla Mining (whom I use for my longer-term silver miners proxy) are up more than 20%.
You can read the article on silver miners outlook for 2026 here: https://illya.sh/threads/silver-mining-stocks-are-undervalued-in-2026
Don't Overthink Commodity Miners Investments
I'm now coming across several large finance accounts on X, which are sharing the results of their miner equity picks from 2025 made available to groups/newsletters/communities with paid access. The results from their buy calls from just a few months ago look impressive - price more than doubling isn't uncommon. The keywords here are *isn't uncommon*. A 2x gain in the mining sector since November 2025 isn't impressive. When evaluating the quality of the calls, it's important that you establish the correct baseline.
One examples of such buy calls was shared by Peter Schiff, who posted his investment suggestion from November 2025 on Nexa Resources S.A. (NYSE: NEXA), which is a miner/producer of zinc, copper, silver and some gold. Since November 2025, its stock price has more than doubled. This was shared as a part of a paid newsletter, whose November 2025 issue was made available to the public. While a >100% price increase may seem impressive, you could've been better off by just investing in a larger, well established miners like Hecla, which are subjects to a smaller set of risks.
Speaking numbers, you could've achieved a similar x2 gain since November 2025 by acquiring Hecla Mining Company stock (NYSE: HL) instead. Hecla is a well-established gold, silver, zinc and other metals miner with more than 60 years of price action dating back to 1964. In contrast, Nexa's price action dates back only by less than a decade - to 2017. As such, you can achieve the result at the cost of a smaller risk. I've shared Hecla Mining several times in my lists on my website throughout 2025 at no cost. I probably also shared others, but Hecla is the one that first comes to mind.
Here's what's important to understand:
There's a global liquidity inflow into the commodities sector, which includes miners, producers & Co equities. The alpha comes from identifying outperformers relative to the index, conditional to risk. Well-established, long running companies generally come with a lower risk profiles, compared to less well established or juniors.
The question isn't whether you can get more upside gain with smaller cap miners/juniors, the question is whether that extra potential gain justifies the extra risk and cost. Frequently the most obvious choices are the best ones. Investing into several miner/producer indexes, alongside a few individual well established, large-cap picks may be all that you need.
Copper Is A Great Investment In 2026 - Technicals & Fundamentals Explained
*A big part of this analysis also applies to copper miners, but I prefer to cover that in a separate article
From a technical standpoint, copper is currently flipping a ≈20 year old resistance for support. On a monthly chart, copper is in a multi-year upwards channel, and it’s now close to the upper trend line of that channel. Copper is also at record lows when priced in terms of gold and silver.
From a fundamental, supply/demand perspective, copper is required for electrification, data centers, new buildings, electric vehicles, and electric appliances in general.
International Copper Study Group (ICSG) expects refined copper’s demand to surpass the available supply/production in 2026. Given that new copper mines are slow to build, increasing the supply of copper requires great investments of capital and time, and in case of continued increase of global copper demand, it may take decades for the production to meet that demand fully.
This creates a setup for a significant upwards price pressure on copper from current levels.
It's also important to be aware of the metal's general price action. Copper is not gold - copper is significantly more volatile, but post 2021, the volatility has been more compressed to the upwards channel structure described above and shown in the chart.
Regarding the maximum drawdown from the current price levels (≈$5.90/lb), I don’t believe that copper will correct more than ≈15%, as there it will find a strong support area, and soon after the bottom support trend line from the monthly upwards channel, both of which will exert strong buying pressure. Within 6 months from now, I expect copper’s price to be above the current levels. This a risk-adjusted timeframe in which you should frame the current thesis - so it means that, for the same amount of capital, your investments in copper from today will be yield significantly more than they would in at the prevailing rate in money market funds. Realistically, I think it will happen much sooner than 6 months.
In addition to everything above there is also monetary debasement, debt refinancing walls and negative pressures on USD dominance as a reserve currency. These 3, alongside the geopolitical tensions present an additional source of positive price pressure on the whole commodity sector. My copper price thesis is positioned within this liquidity flow into commodities. I’ve covered these points in detail in my previous posts.
