The Game is Rigged - Time to Change Your Risk Framework

Happy Friday Bitcoiners!

Your grocery bill has doubled. Rent is up 40%. And the government is claiming inflation is at 2.9%? Someone's lying.

Last week we saw a flash crash on a whisper tweet from Trump, while traders with rather suspicious connections positioned themselves perfectly right before the news dropped.

Somehow, the people closest to power always seem to know something we don't.

That uncomfortable feeling isn't paranoia. It's your brain recognizing a pattern. The rules you were taught about building wealth (“diversify across stocks and bonds” and “believe in the 60/40 portfolio”) were written for a game that no longer exists.

Today, we need a new framework for thinking about risk. Not measured by volatility or drawdowns, but the real risk factor: systematic wealth confiscation through monetary debasement.

This week we're diving into👇

• Why Modern Portfolio Theory is dead

• The overwhelming evidence of the game being rigged

• Why its best to think in decades to actually win

Let's get started!

1️⃣ The Game is Rigged

In 1952, Harry Markowitz won a Nobel Prize for Modern Portfolio Theory (aka “MPT”). The idea was elegant: diversify across asset classes to optimize returns while minimizing volatility. For decades, this framework dominated financial planning. 60% stocks, 40% bonds. Rebalance annually. Retire comfortably.

That theory is dead.

Why? Because MPT assumed your biggest risk was market volatility, but it completely ignored monetary debasement. Everyone obsesses over making money. Almost nobody thinks seriously about protecting it. Yet preserving wealth might be more important than creating it.

What's the point of a 10% return if your currency loses 15% of its purchasing power every year? Even the best fiat currency (the dollar) has lost 53% of its purchasing power over the last two decades (image below).

The "game" of making money (i.e. storing your time so you can enjoy life later) is 100% rigged. Throughout history though, this theft happened slowly. A few percentage points annually. Slow enough that most people didn't notice until retirement, when their nest egg couldn't buy what they thought it would.

Now we're watching it accelerate rapidly in real-time. Money printing has gone exponential because the people in power have reached the same conclusion: the most politically expedient solution to $36 trillion in debt is to inflate it away.

Print more dollars, debase the currency, and quietly rob savers while the debt-to-GDP ratio (hopefully) improves.

It's not a bug. It's the entire business model. And if you're still playing by the old rules, you're the sucker at the table.

2️⃣ The Evidence is Everywhere

Last week's flash crash was a masterclass in how the game actually works in practice. Bitcoin dropped nearly 10% in minutes on policy rumors. Within hours, allegations emerged about traders with White House connections positioned perfectly before the news.

Whether these specific claims prove true or not misses the point: information asymmetry is baked into the system. Retail investors are always last to know. By the time you're reading the news, smart money has already moved.

Consider the CPI. The government reports 2-3% inflation while your lived experience screams otherwise. That's because CPI excludes asset prices entirely - no stocks, bonds, or real estate. It ignores what actually makes people wealthy or poor.

When the Fed prints money, asset prices inflate first. Stocks up. Real estate up. Gold up. By the time that money reaches your paycheck, prices already adjusted. You earn more dollars that buys you less material goods and services.

Here's a number worth remembering: Since 2020, M2 money supply increased by over $6 trillion - a 40% expansion in just four years (red circle below).

Your paycheck didn't go up 40%, but guess what? Asset prices sure as hell did.

Meanwhile, gold is hitting all-time highs as central banks worldwide are quietly accumulating it. They seem to know what's coming, even if they won't say it publicly. Oh and by the way, earlier this year the Fed also quietly shifted its 2% inflation mandate on the population, moving the goalposts mid-game.

The pattern is clear: people closest to the money printer benefit most. Everyone else? They get the shit end of the stick.

If you don't understand this game, you're getting played.

3️⃣ Think Decades, Not Days

Here's where most people get it wrong: they're playing the wrong timeframe.

If you're thinking in days or months, yeah, the game looks unbeatable. You can't front-run insider trades. You can't predict flash crashes. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to time the perfect entry and exit.

But zoom out to decades, and suddenly the pattern becomes crystal clear - and actionable.

Look at gold. Boomers bought gold watches in the 1990s when gold traded around $400/ounce. Seemed expensive then - a luxury splurge. Today they're selling those same watches with gold over $4,300/ounce, over a 10x return.

They didn't study markets. They didn't trade. They just held something scarce while dollars got printed into oblivion.

Here's the lesson: the wealthy don't try to outsmart the rigged game day-to-day. They opt out of it entirely by holding assets that can't be printed into existence.

Real estate in prime locations. Art from dead painters. Gold that literally took supernovas to create. They're buying stores of value that preserve purchasing power across decades.

But here's where they’re wrong (it’s probably because their incentives are skewed toward their existing fiat world): Bitcoin actually has even better monetary properties than all of them. More scarce than real estate. More portable than gold. More divisible than art. And completely resistant to political manipulation.

Your strategy is simple: stop trying to beat them at their game. Play a different game entirely and start thinking in terms of decades.

Bitcoin isn't about getting rich quick. It's about not getting poor slowly. It's your opt-out from a system designed to confiscate your wealth one percentage point at a time.

Key Takeaway

The game is rigged, but you don't have to play it. Traditional portfolio theory said volatility was the enemy. Wrong. Monetary debasement is the real enemy.

The wealthy figured this out decades ago - hold scarce assets that can't be printed. A Boomer who bought a gold watch in the 90’s for $400/ounce accidentally more than 10x'd their money just by holding something scarce.

Bitcoin is that strategy perfected - more scarce, more portable, more manipulation-resistant than anything before it. You can't beat insiders at their game. But you can opt out and play a different game where nobody can change the rules.

Think decades, not days. Your dollars will lose value - guaranteed. What scarce asset are you holding over that time frame instead?

Stay focused on the long term,

@Publius256

P.S. We’re doing our best to orange pill the world by helping educate and share timeless Bitcoin principles.

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