Most people think the way capital takes over a foreign company is simple: just buy enough shares. After the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Samsung was a clear example — yet even then, American capital never fully took control. Thirty years later, the playbook has been upgraded. It is no longer just about buying stocks.

       Let’s look at the full path through Samsung and SK Hynix. These two Korean companies control the most critical part of the AI industry — HBM (think of it as the “heart” of AI chips). Without it, even the most expensive AI chips cannot run. Together they hold nearly 80% of the global market. In theory, an asset this important should stay firmly in Korean hands. Capital, however, is taking a quieter and far more thorough route.

Step 1: Wash the shares out of local hands first

       In 2024, when HBM was in severe shortage and Samsung and Hynix were making record profits, their stock prices suddenly plunged 40%. Wall Street quietly bought during that period. Almost no one noticed.

Then in 2025, global media suddenly began shouting in unison: “AI memory is the golden decade,” “Missing Hynix is like missing Nvidia in its early days.” Ordinary Korean office workers, retirees, and newly married couples poured in. Many borrowed heavily from banks and brokers — in simple terms, they had 1 million of their own money but borrowed enough to buy as if they had 2 million or more.

       When prices fell, those who borrowed could not hold on. In just half a year, Korea’s major banks had already lent out 85% of their entire annual lending capacity. Retail investors could no longer borrow to cover losses. They were forced to sell their shares at rock-bottom prices to repay the debt. 300,000 accounts were wiped out. 1.2 million people were left with debts.

       The real goal of this step was never simply to crash the stock price. It was to force the shares that had been scattered among ordinary Koreans back onto the market through panic and forced liquidation. American capital slowly picked them up at the bottom.

       Note that the 1997 crisis already proved that simply holding shares is not enough to truly control a company. That is why U.S. holdings were deliberately spread across hundreds of funds, each owning less than 5%. Real voting power still sat with the Korean founding families, who held more than 20% in concentrated blocks. On the surface, the companies remained Korean-controlled.

       But capital had completed the first step: it had stripped the chips out of local hands.

Step 2: Move the “pricing power” to its own home ground

       Owning the shares is still not enough. The more important question is: who gets to decide how much the company is actually worth?

       In July 2026, SK Hynix listed in the United States. By then its share price had already fallen 43%, and the Korean won had depreciated 30% against the dollar. Americans could buy the stock at roughly a 60% discount.

       Previously the stock could only be traded in Korea, so its price was set by Korean money. Korean retail investors buying $65 billion in a whole year was already their limit. The U.S. stock market, by contrast, turns over $200 billion in a single day. Once global capital starts trading the same stock in the United States, the price is decided where the trading volume is deepest.

       A simple analogy: Imagine you used to sell fruit in your own neighborhood wet market. You and the local residents set the price. Now the same fruit is sold in the city’s largest supermarket. The price is set by the supermarket and the entire city’s buyers. Even if you are still the farmer, you have to follow the supermarket’s lead.

       That is the transfer of pricing power. From now on, when Hynix wants to raise new capital, issue new shares, or borrow money, it must watch the reaction of the U.S. market. Capital does not need to buy the entire company. It only needs the place where the price is discovered to be its own home ground.

Step 3: Physically move the factories and production capacity

       Once the shares and the pricing power are in hand, the final step is to move the actual production lines onto its own soil.

       The United States put a clear choice on the table using subsidies and tariffs: Want to keep selling chips to the world? Either build factories in the U.S., take the subsidies and tax breaks, or face a 100% tariff. A 100% tariff means your chips instantly become twice as expensive and no one will buy them. Samsung went to Texas. Hynix went to Indiana.

       Once the factories are on the ground, the subsidies become new leverage. Intel has already shown how this works: it received billions in government subsidies to build plants. When construction was only halfway done, the government suddenly said, “Give us a portion of the company’s shares so we become a shareholder.” Refuse? The subsidies would be cancelled and the half-finished factories would become ruins. In the end, Intel signed.

       When the real factories, equipment, and workers are all on American soil, even the strongest technology becomes increasingly constrained by American rules. At that point, the company’s nominal nationality no longer matters much.

The real method capital uses

       Capital does not take foreign core assets through a single forced acquisition overnight. It works through three progressive layers:

1. Use market swings and leverage to wash the shares out of local retail investors’ hands;
2. Through a U.S. listing and a deeper market, move pricing power to its own home ground;
3. Use subsidies and tariffs to physically relocate factories and production capacity onto its own soil.

       Koreans still hold the surface-level voting rights. Americans already hold the real control over price and future production capacity. This is capital operating at a higher dimension — it does not rush to change the company name. It simply peels away control, layer by layer.

       The next company or country that holds critical technology and keeps capital awake at night — will it walk the same path? Worth watching closely.

        These past couple of days, two big things happened in the worlds of crypto and blockchain. One involves Circle, the company behind the stablecoin USDC. The other involves SWIFT, the backbone of global cross-border payments. Both announcements came out around the same time, and it doesn’t feel like pure coincidence. It looks more like two worlds that used to run on parallel tracks — traditional finance and blockchain technology — are finally starting to move toward each other.

       Let’s break it down one by one, in plain language.

1. Circle’s Federal Trust Bank Charter: From “Wild West” to Regulated Custody

       First up is Circle. It issues USDC, one of the biggest stablecoins out there. A stablecoin is simply a type of cryptocurrency designed to stay steady in value — usually pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar. So when you buy 1 USDC, Circle is supposed to hold $1 in cash (or equivalent U.S. Treasuries) in reserve.

       Until now, Circle wasn’t a bank itself, so it had to keep those reserves at third-party traditional banks. That’s changing. Circle just received approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to set up its own national trust bank.

       Important note: this isn’t a regular bank license. You can’t go there to deposit money, withdraw cash, or take out loans. Its main job is asset custody — safely looking after the reserves with full federal-level compliance.

Why does this matter?

• Crypto companies used to be seen as operating outside the traditional financial system — kind of the “wild path.” Now a top U.S. federal banking regulator has given Circle official recognition. That’s a meaningful step toward blockchain technology joining the mainstream financial world.
• The rules are clearer and the oversight is higher, which actually gives Circle more room to grow.
• Big Wall Street players (think JPMorgan) have wanted to use stablecoins for cross-border payments but held back because of compliance worries. With this federal charter, they’ll likely feel more comfortable partnering with Circle. That should speed up real-world use of blockchain in everyday business and finance.

2. SWIFT’s Blockchain Shared Ledger: Traditional Banks Fighting Back — the Compliant Way

       Now let’s look at SWIFT. It’s the global messaging network that almost every bank uses for international wire transfers and payments. If you’ve ever sent money overseas, chances are SWIFT was involved behind the scenes.

       SWIFT just announced it will launch a blockchain shared ledger and run a pilot program with 17 major banks to test tokenized deposits for cross-border use.

       What does “tokenized deposits” mean? Think of it this way: the money sitting in your bank account is technically a liability the bank owes you. Tokenization turns that deposit into a digital token that can move freely on a blockchain — while still staying under bank regulation.

       Right now, different banks have their own separate blockchains (HSBC has one, Citibank has another, etc.) and they don’t easily talk to each other. SWIFT’s shared ledger acts like a translator. It doesn’t replace existing payment rails — it connects the different tokenized systems so they can work together.

What changes if this works?

• Much faster cross-border payments. Right now, if you send money to a supplier overseas on a Friday evening, it often sits until Monday or Tuesday because banks are closed on weekends. With tokenized deposits on a shared blockchain ledger, companies could send payments 24/7, 365 days a year — with near-instant settlement.
• Traditional banks striking back. Companies like Circle have been eating into the cross-border payments market (hundreds of billions of dollars) by offering always-on service. Banks noticed. By offering their own regulated tokenized deposits, they’re telling customers: “You don’t need to switch to risky private crypto. Keep your money in a real bank, turn it into a token when you need speed, and you still get full regulatory protection.” It’s traditional finance’s compliant counter-move against stablecoins.
• Blockchain’s image is shifting. Many people still associate blockchain only with speculation and trading. SWIFT’s move is sending a different message to regulators and users worldwide: blockchain can be integrated into modern finance without breaking existing rules or risk controls.

3. Two Big Announcements on the Same Day — What Does It Really Mean?

       These two stories landing almost simultaneously feels deliberate. New players in crypto are moving closer to tradition, while big traditional institutions are speeding up their adoption of new technology.

Here are a few thoughts:

1. In the future, we might see two different kinds of compliant digital money co-existing. Stablecoins like USDC are flexible and more decentralized — great for everyday people and smaller transactions. SWIFT’s system connects a huge global banking network and is better suited for massive cross-border trade and institutional settlements worth hundreds of millions. It’s a bit like choosing between a nimble mobile payment app and a full-service bank app — both useful, just for different situations.
2. Not long ago, many mainstream financial institutions and regulators viewed blockchain mainly as a tool for speculation or money laundering. Now the OCC has granted Circle a serious federal charter, and SWIFT is actively bringing banks onto blockchain pilots. This suggests blockchain is no longer operating outside the financial system as some kind of “lawless zone.” It’s gradually becoming part of the core financial infrastructure.
3. Modern finance’s need for faster, more efficient cross-border payments has clearly gotten SWIFT’s attention. Its actions are, in a way, also giving Web3 a helpful push forward.

       Overall, what we’re seeing is traditional finance embracing on-chain technology while the on-chain world is rapidly becoming more compliant and regulated.

       Thirty years ago, the internet changed how information moves. These developments may end up changing how value moves. In the past, managing money relied heavily on people and rules. Going forward, it will rely more on technology, networks, and code. Money used to be mostly static numbers. In the future, it could become always-on, borderless, programmable technology.

       In late June 2026, Xiaohongshu quietly filed for a Hong Kong listing. Backed by Goldman Sachs and CICC, the move would mark one of the largest Chinese internet company IPOs in Hong Kong in nearly a decade — with a potential valuation of $30–50 billion. Note the currency: US dollars. Earlier deals by MiniMax and Zhipu were priced in Hong Kong dollars and were significantly smaller in scale.

       But shortly after the filing, a whistleblower letter from a former employee landed at both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s listing division and the Securities and Futures Commission. Regulators have confirmed receipt of the email.

       The sender, Chen Hao, previously headed Xiaohongshu’s South China commercial direct-sales team. He holds a court judgment that found the company unlawfully terminated his employment — plus evidence that could directly challenge the integrity of its VIE structure.

1. Xiaohongshu’s Long Road to IPO

       The company had been preparing for years. Back in 2018, a co-founder told Bloomberg it might list within two to three years. In 2021 it hired a former Citi executive as CFO and was reportedly preparing a US roadshow to raise $500–1,000 million.

       Then Didi’s troubled US listing triggered tighter scrutiny on Chinese companies. Xiaohongshu paused its US plans, along with several other high-profile names including Soul, Huolala, Keep, and Himalaya.

       For the next few years, rumors of a Hong Kong listing kept surfacing — and Xiaohongshu repeatedly denied them (the market started calling it the “three denials”). Only in 2025 did it rent office space in Hong Kong, build out a major commercial team, and clean up its financials. The secret filing finally came at the end of June 2026.

2. Why Rush to File Before June 30?

       A listing application needs audited financial statements, and those statements are generally valid for only six months. Xiaohongshu was working with its fully audited 2025 annual results. It had to submit before the end of June — otherwise the audit would expire and the company would need to start over.

       For a company of this size, redoing an audit is expensive and time-consuming. That’s why many firms sprint to file by June 30: it’s not always about market sentiment, but about a hard document deadline.

3. A “Bleeding” Listing?

        In the secondary market, Xiaohongshu shares had been bid up to roughly $50 billion in valuation. Yet the IPO range is being discussed at $30–50 billion.

       The gap exists because today’s Hong Kong market favors AI, robotics, and chip-related stories. Xiaohongshu’s core business — social commerce, livestreaming, and advertising — belongs to an earlier internet era. At this moment, it may have to accept a lower valuation to get listed while the window is still open. Market watchers sometimes call this a “bleeding IPO.”

       It’s not unique to Xiaohongshu. Many companies outside the hottest tech themes face the same pressure right now.

4. ChenHao’s Whistleblower Letter: Three Sharp Questions

       ChenHao joined in June 2022. According to him, he quickly lifted team performance, exceeded targets by 20% in 2023, won a company innovation award, and signed a 30,000-share option agreement with founder and CEO Mao Wenchao (vesting over four years: 50/25/25).

       In December 2023 the company fired him for “incompetence.” Because he hadn’t completed two years, the first 50% of options were cancelled under standard policy. He received statutory severance, but believed the dismissal lacked proper grounds and took the case to arbitration.

       Guangzhou’s Tianhe District Court ruled in his favor in both the first and second instance, finding the termination unlawful. Xiaohongshu was ordered to pay roughly 800,000 RMB (including the option portion). For a company heading toward a multi-billion-dollar valuation, the amount itself is small. The real problem is the unresolved loose end it left behind.

     ChenHao’s letter raises three main issues:

i. VIE structure clarity (the most sensitive)

       ChenHao’s employment contract was with “Shu Yi Shu Er Culture Media,” a domestic Chinese company. To defend itself in the labor case, Xiaohongshu submitted documents stating that this entity had “no direct relationship and no contractual control” with its offshore structure.

That statement touches the heart of the VIE model.

       VIE structures (first popularized by companies like Sohu) let Chinese internet firms list overseas while complying with rules that restrict foreign investment in sensitive sectors. An offshore holding company (usually in the Cayman Islands) lists on the stock exchange. It controls a domestic licensed entity through a series of agreements so that profits can flow upward to foreign shareholders.

       The critical link is that the domestic company’s revenue must be fully captured by those agreements. If one domestic entity is shown to sit outside the control chain, regulators may question whether the structure is watertight — and whether shareholders can actually receive the economic benefits they expect.

       ChenHao’s evidence points straight at this potential weak spot.

ii. Disclosure of the labor dispute

       Since a court has already ruled the termination unlawful, did Xiaohongshu fully disclose the case and its potential impact in the listing documents? Incomplete disclosure would be a straightforward regulatory issue.

iii. ESG and labor compliance

       Public companies are expected to meet labor standards. Systemic employment problems can hurt ESG assessments and investor confidence.               Once shares are sold to the public, any later penalty or scandal over past labor practices would be borne by ordinary shareholders. Regulators therefore examine this area closely.

5. Can It Still Get Through? Time Is the Real Test

       These issues are unlikely to cause an outright rejection. The exchange and regulator will probably send written questions and ask for more information or clarification.

That process carries two costs:

• Money:
  Lawyers, accountants, and sponsors will need to review everything again — potentially several million RMB in extra fees.
• Time:
  The back-and-forth could take two to three months. If Xiaohongshu misses its original window, it may need a fresh audit and could lose the current positive sentiment around tech-related listings in Hong Kong.

       Right now the market is excited about AI-related names like MiniMax and Zhipu. Xiaohongshu hoped to ride that wave. If momentum fades — or if external shocks hit — the valuation or even the ability to complete the deal could suffer.

6. A Lesson Before Listing: Don’t Leave Loose Ends

       Xiaohongshu’s situation sends a clear message to any company planning to go public: once you step into the public markets, historical problems must be cleaned up.

       If you need to let people go, do it properly with full documentation. If you don’t want to do that, settle the matter cleanly. Leaving a “landmine” behind means it can explode at the most vulnerable moment — right when regulators and investors are scrutinizing everything.

       Listing isn’t the finish line. It’s the start of public accountability. Any unfinished business tends to surface under that spotlight. Handling the small things properly is what actually keeps the process on track.

        There’s another twist: Apple has been talking to the US government, asking for an exemption so it can buy chips from Changxin Memory, which is currently on a Defense Department list. The US government is also a big Apple customer (iPads and MacBooks). That conversation is still ongoing.

        Apple has spent years being urged to “hurry up with AI,” yet it seems content to keep selling computers and phones. Reality shows that even if you don’t jump in, the ripple effects of AI on resources can still reach you.

        This reminds me of several big industrial shifts in history. Every major wave tends to create three groups: the earliest movers, the ones who join midway, and those who refuse to move at all. Their outcomes differ, but society often ends up with real, lasting changes after the “bubble” bursts. Here are four stories that show the pattern.

1. Case 1: British Railway Mania (1840s)

        Once steam locomotives appeared, Britain went all in. In 1846 alone, Parliament passed 272 railway acts authorizing nearly 9,500 miles of new track. Even priests, widows, and lawyers who never touched stocks put their life savings into railway shares. Prices doubled in just two years.

        Railways needed massive amounts of iron and coal. Britain’s iron output jumped from over 2 million tons in 1840 to nearly 3 million tons by 1852 — more than the rest of the world combined. Iron and coal prices soared. Industries completely unrelated to railways — shipbuilding, construction, farm tools — suddenly had to pay more for materials. Sound familiar?

        Among the earliest investors, some who backed lines with real passenger demand made money. But the ones who built the biggest empires on borrowed money (like “Railway King” George Hudson) collapsed when the bubble burst. He misused around £750,000 (roughly £74 million today) and ended up in prison.

        People who jumped in at the peak got crushed. Ordinary middle-class investors who bought after prices had already doubled watched shares fall 66% by 1850. Many families lost everything. Ironically, only about two-thirds of the authorized lines were ever built.

        Those who refused to participate and stuck with canals? Railways were faster and cheaper, so canal traffic dried up. They cut prices desperately but couldn’t compete. Many were acquired or abandoned. The canal companies were the “Apple” of their day — they just wanted to protect their existing business and got swept aside.

        Society, however, came out ahead. The tracks stayed on the ground. Transport costs collapsed, Britain became a single unified market, and industrialization and urbanization accelerated sharply. Shareholders lost; society gained real infrastructure.

2. Case 2: US Factory Electrification (1880s–1920s)

        When electricity arrived, factory owners expected huge efficiency gains by replacing steam engines with electric motors. What actually got expensive was copper for wiring.

        For the first 30 years, productivity barely moved. Why? Factories simply swapped the steam engine for an electric motor but kept the old layout — one giant overhead shaft with belts running everything. Nothing about the workflow changed, so nothing improved.

        Around 1910, a new generation of factory owners finally got it: put a small electric motor under each machine, rearrange the floor around actual production flow, and let machines start and stop independently. Efficiency exploded. By the 1920s, electrification accounted for roughly half of US manufacturing productivity growth.

        Factories that refused to redesign and clung to steam power were gradually driven out by lower-cost competitors.

        On a societal level, electricity didn’t stop at factories. It transformed homes and cities — electric lights, refrigerators, elevators, phones, radio. Modern urban life was literally redrawn by electricity.

        This feels a lot like how many companies are using AI today: they bolt it onto old processes (writing emails, summarizing meetings) and then wonder why nothing changes. The real gains come only when people redesign the entire business around the new technology.

3. Case 3: US Auto Industry (1900–1920s)

        At one point there were 253 car companies in America — more chaotic than today’s AI startup scene. Tires needed rubber, so rubber prices were bid sky-high. Capital rushed to plant rubber in Southeast Asia; acreage exploded nearly 30-fold in just a few years.

        Most of those 253 early car companies died. By 1929 only 44 remained.

        The winners were later entrants: Ford (with the Model T and assembly line), General Motors, and Chrysler. The three eventually took about 80% of the US market.

        What happened to the carriage and wagon makers who refused to touch cars? America once had over 13,000 businesses tied to horse-drawn transport. By 1920 almost all were gone. Whip makers collapsed because cars don’t need whips. A few smart carriage makers survived by pivoting to make car seats, bearings, and brakes for the new auto factories. They adapted instead of fighting the wave.

        Society was transformed: suburbs, highways, gas stations, motels, supermarkets. The entire geography and daily life of America were reshaped.

4. Case 4: Internet & E-commerce Bubble (1995–2002)

        This one is closest to us. Add “.com” to any company name and the stock soared. Nasdaq rose 600% from 1995 to March 2000, then fell 78% by October 2002.

        Most first-wave internet companies disappeared. Webvan, an online grocery service, burned through nearly $400 million before going bankrupt in 2001.

        A few who survived the crash became giants. Amazon’s stock dropped more than 90% and nearly died, but Jeff Bezos used the crisis to strengthen fundamentals. It went from an online bookstore to the massive company it is today. The overbuilt fiber from the bubble era later became cheap broadband that enabled YouTube, cloud computing, and mobile internet.

        Traditional retailers? Borders, once a bookstore giant, liquidated in 2011. Toys “R” Us and others followed. Walmart was slow at first but eventually invested heavily in e-commerce and survived.

        Society changed permanently. Shopping, entertainment, social life, and work all moved online. Can you imagine your daily life without the internet now?

5. Companies That Saw the Future but Refused to Change

        History also has cases of companies that clearly saw what was coming yet clung to past success:

• Kodak invented digital camera technology but dragged its feet because film was so profitable — and eventually died.
• Nokia dominated feature phones and had early smartphone efforts, yet mocked the first iPhone. Everyone knows how that ended.
• Blockbuster had the chance to buy a small Netflix and turned it down. It went bankrupt in 2010.
• Sears was once America’s “catalog Amazon” — housewives ordered from printed catalogs. It should have been perfectly positioned for e-commerce, but decided its old model was too good to change. It disappeared.

These companies didn’t fail because they missed the future. They failed because past success became the heaviest anchor holding them back.

6. Back to Apple and Today’s AI Wave

        We’re back where we started. Apple has been cautious on generative AI, yet memory and storage prices are still rising because of AI demand. You don’t have to participate — the wave still affects the inputs you need.

        History shows the same pattern again and again: bubbles burst, but the infrastructure and societal shifts that remain are real. Railways got built, electricity spread, cars changed how we live, and the internet moved everything online.

        Many people today ask, “Is AI actually useful? Why hasn’t productivity jumped yet?” It sounds almost exactly like factory owners in 1900 who replaced their steam engine with an electric motor and saw no immediate gain.

        The reason is usually the same: most are still bolting AI onto old workflows instead of redesigning the whole business around it. The big payoff comes later, once enough people do what the successful factories did in the 1920s.

        Companies that swear they’ll never touch AI are making the same bet as the canal operators, steam-only factories, carriage makers, and catalog retailers who eventually vanished.

7. Practical Tips for Ordinary People

• Don’t ignore the wave. History shows standing on the shore is never free.

• Don’t mock the people getting swept up in it. Some are pioneers; others are doing the necessary trial-and-error that later benefits everyone.

• Stay open-minded and adapt quickly. The more successful your past model has been, the more carefully you should watch whether it’s becoming the very thing holding you back.

What do you think about Apple’s price increase — short-term cost blip or a sign of bigger supply-chain shifts in the AI era? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

Today let’s talk about a question a lot of people are asking: Why Warsh as the new Fed Chair? What exactly is he and Bessent trying to achieve together? Trump used to publicly pressure Powell hard for faster rate cuts, but he’s been much more tolerant of Warsh from the start. What’s the real logic here? Let’s walk through the data and timeline together.

1. Key Phenomena We’re Seeing

• Trump’s Words Are Moving the Markets

During the Middle East tensions, Trump has been actively using public statements to shape expectations. He repeatedly emphasized the need to reach a deal with Iran quickly, with one clear goal: bringing oil prices down. The pattern is consistent — when oil falls below $80 per barrel, his tone tends to get tougher; when prices rebound, he softens his rhetoric again.

• The Unusual Moves in the Data

Before the Middle East events, the dollar index was around 97. At the height of tensions it climbed to 100.6 and later broke above 101 (last time it reached that level was May 2025).

Oil prices surged from $70-72 per barrel before the events to a peak of $119, then started falling after Trump’s comments and are now below $80. Although ships are still occasionally passing through the Strait of Hormuz, normal traffic has not fully resumed.

Gold’s movement is even more striking: it was around $5,200 per ounce before the events and has since dropped to $4,200. The core issues between the U.S. and Iran remain unresolved, and Iran has made clear it won’t withdraw from Lebanon, yet gold prices have been clearly suppressed.

After the MOU was signed, oil prices fell quickly, but the dollar index did not follow — it kept rising, and stocks also rebounded.

• The Perfect Timing Between the MOU and Warsh’s Debut

The MOU with Iran was reportedly signed last Friday (June 18). Trump was still at the G7 summit but pushed to finalize it early — right before Warsh’s first FOMC meeting and press conference.

Once signed, oil prices dropped further while the dollar index climbed to 101. Right after Warsh’s debut, the dollar index pushed even higher. The entire sequence lined up extremely smoothly, with the timing clearly intentional.

2. Warsh

• Warsh’s Style: Deliberate Ambiguity + Strict Discipline

Warsh’s first appearance marked a clear break from Powell’s approach. He announced the creation of five new task forces to overhaul long-standing policy frameworks, stressed a reform-oriented direction, and emphasized strict monetary discipline.

He also paid tribute to Greenspan by adopting a more “ambiguous” style — not spelling out exactly what the Fed will do next, but encouraging markets to study the data and draw their own conclusions. This leaves room for flexibility while increasing uncertainty and volatility.

It works in a similar way to how Trump uses rhetoric to guide expectations: greater market turbulence creates more space for adjustments.

• Warsh’s Core Belief: Defending the Dollar’s Credibility

Warsh has long held a firm view: the dollar’s credibility cannot be undermined, and protecting it is the Fed’s top priority.

He advocates shrinking the balance sheet to control the overall money supply and maintain tight monetary sovereignty. At the same time, he sees AI boosting U.S. productivity and crypto/stablecoins extending America’s monetary influence. In his assessment, focusing only on short-term Treasury issues while ignoring longer-term challenges over the next 5–30 years would be short-sighted.

His remarks sent a clear signal to markets: even though no major actions have been taken yet, the Fed will gradually withdraw excess liquidity from the system. The dollar deserves respect, and excessive liquidity must be squeezed out. The Fed wants to regain control of monetary pricing power. Markets appear to have understood — the dollar index quickly broke above 100.

3. The Bigger Picture

When we connect the dots, the picture becomes clearer: after the Middle East events, the dollar index rose against the trend, gold was held down in stages, and oil prices were brought under effective control. These shifts have been concentrated in the past one to two months. Trump’s rhetoric managed expectations, Warsh’s policies added uncertainty while enforcing discipline, and together they are serving the goal of reshaping dollar credibility.

It looks like an energy and financial operation wrapped in geopolitical tension, with the central aim of stabilizing the dollar’s position. Of course, there are other pieces in the same framework — upcoming listings such as SpaceX and OpenAI, Wall Street’s push to bring trillions of dollars on-chain, and the new 7×24-hour crude oil and gold futures contracts.

4.  A Note for Everyday Investors

Market uncertainty is only going to grow and become more complex. At the recent G7 summit, references to the old Plaza Accord resurfaced, signaling that global financial competition is now in full swing. The next few years could bring changes many of us have never experienced before.

The suggestion is simple: stay cautious, respect the market, and view these developments with a long-term perspective. Analyze rationally and avoid being whipsawed by short-term noise.