A Most Delightful Speculation: The Gentleman Economist and the Cryptic Coin Flip of Fate 🎩💸

by

Dear reader, one might fancy the prediction markets-those modern-day oracles of Polymarket and Kalshi-as positively agog with anticipation! Their collective gaze has settled upon Kevin Hassett, erstwhile economic savant to President Trump, as the most likely successor to the esteemed Mr. Powell at the helm of the Federal Reserve. A gentleman of discernment, to be sure, though one wonders if his penchant for cryptocurrency might prove either a blessing or a calamity. 🎻🎲

Lo! The odds have ascended to 66% and 74% respectively, as if the very markets themselves have been bewitched by the siren song of digital coin. Mr. Hassett’s credentials include a stint upon Coinbase’s advisory council (a fact whispered in hushed tones at White House soirées) and a seven-figure stake in the exchange, which he presumably keeps locked in a mahogany cabinet labeled “For Emergencies and/or Revolutionizing Finance.” His leadership of the digital asset working group, meanwhile, has rendered him a veritable crypto-celebrity, though one suspects the Federal Reserve’s dowdy old guard might find such enthusiasm vulgar. 🏦✨

Madam Caitlin Long of Custodia Bank-a lady of formidable resolve and a penchant for caps-lock declarations-quipped upon the X platform: “Should this improbable tale unfold, the anti-crypto cabal at the Fed shall be shown the door! (Though perhaps not all, for even Jane Austen’s villains must have their stage.)” A revolution in banking, it seems, is nigh! 🚨👑

Mr. Hassett’s Curious Affair with Cryptocurrency

A Republican economist by birth and a Washingtonian by misfortune, Mr. Hassett has long danced on the periphery of crypto’s glittering ballroom. His financial disclosures, dear reader, read like a Regency romance: a seven-figure Coinbase stake here, a plum advisory role there. One might almost mistake him for a modern-day Mr. Darcy-though instead of a sprawling estate, he owns “a diversified portfolio of blockchain assets.” 💎📊

Yet let us not forget the cautionary tale of Gary Gensler, whose MIT lectures on blockchain once dazzled the masses-only for him to morph into a regulatory ogre, smiting crypto exchanges with the fervor of a scorned lover. A lesson in misplaced optimism, perhaps? 🐉🎓

The Fed’s Internal Tussle: A Drama in Three Acts

As Mr. Hassett’s star ascends, the Fed’s own approach to bank supervision has become a stage for high drama! Enter Governor Michael Barr, a gentleman whose reputation for regulatory rigor has earned him the sobriquet “Architect of Chokepoint 2.0.” He warns that the Fed’s new “risk-first” framework might leave them blind to emerging perils, “like a carriage driver charging through fog, certain the road is clear.” 🚂🌫️

Caitlin Long, ever the candid narrator, opines that Barr “will oppose changes made by Trump & his appointees” with the tenacity of a spurned suitor. Meanwhile, the Fed’s recent clarification that its new principles exclude consumer affairs supervision reads less like policy and more like a subplot in a Shakespearean comedy. 🎭📜

Should Mr. Hassett’s improbable ascent materialize, he shall inherit not a blank ledger but a ledger already inked with contention. The Fed, it seems, is less a bastion of stability and more a Regency ballroom-where every dance step is a negotiation, and every glance a power play. 🎭💼

Read More

2025-12-01 14:34