Greetings from Northern Italy on this chilly morning.

I fly to Nashville this week for our Paradigm Shift Conference 2025. I can’t wait! But I also fly into a new world, where things are changing in ways I only ever dreamt of.

There are weeks when the markets drift along lazily, like gondolas along Venice’s Grand Canal. And then there are weeks like this — when the entire system seems to tilt on its axis.

Across metals, bitcoin, politics, and policy, the old world order is cracking apart faster than a dry biscuit. From populists in Europe to price explosions in hard assets, it’s getting clearer by the day: the global status quo is dead.

Here are five seismic shifts you need to keep your eyes on.

1. Silver at $50 and Gold at $4,000 Before Year-End

These are no brave calls. In fact, they may happen before Halloween. Silver hit $48.75 and gold touched $3,940 this morning as I started writing.

The flight from fiat currencies is turning into a full-on jailbreak.

Gold and silver are breaking records like rock stars on a hotel bender. Central banks — especially in China and the BRICS+ world — are hoovering up bullion as if it were the last safe asset on Earth (because it might be). Physical shortages are now so dire that premiums on real bars make ETF “exposure” look like Monopoly money.

The idea that gold could hit $4,000 and silver $50 used to sound like Austrian-economist fan fiction. Then it began creeping into consensus forecasts from serious commodity desks. Now it’s merely a matter of time.

This isn’t a bubble — it’s a revaluation of reality. A capital rotation event that we’ve written about many times: investors are replacing paper with real stuff.

Trust in central banks has collapsed, inflation is far from dead, and debt is the only thing the West can still print. Welcome to the new monetary order: shiny, heavy, and very real.

2. Bitcoin at $125,000 — and Still Climbing

The orange coin just became the digital canary in the coal mine.

Bitcoin ripping past $125,000 isn’t just a crypto story anymore — it’s a monetary rebellion. (BTC has fallen back to $123,500 as I write.) The world’s biggest institutions — sovereign funds, university endowments, and the same banks that once called it a “fraud” — are now quietly piling in.

Why? Because fiat currencies are losing credibility faster than the government bond markets.

Bitcoin is now the anti-CBDC (central bank digital currency). It’s the freedom hedge — the one digital asset that can’t be printed, censored, or “frozen for your safety.” The network effect is now too large to kill. Even the Fed, ECB, and BOJ know it.

They just can’t say it out loud.

3. Czechia Just Elected Its Version of Trump

Andrej Babiš just pulled off what Brussels feared most: a populist, nationalist, pro-sovereignty landslide.

His slogan — “Strong Czechia” — might as well have been written in Trump Tower. Anti-EU, anti-mass migration, pro-tax cuts, pro-energy independence — it’s all there.

Czechia now joins Hungary and Slovakia as part of an emerging Central European Axis of Rebellion against EU technocrats. The political center of gravity is shifting east, and fast. Expect more populist wins as inflation erodes real wages and ordinary Europeans realize their elites prioritize Ukraine over their own citizens.

If you think this stops in Prague, think again. Paris and Berlin are next on the populist menu.

4. Japan’s First Female Prime Minister Means Business

Meet Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s new Prime Minister — and a political reincarnation of Shinzo Abe, minus the Y chromosome.

She’s a conservative firebrand who wants to reboot Japan’s economic mojo, cut bureaucratic bloat, and strengthen ties with Trump’s America. Her rise signals two massive shifts: generational change at the top of Asia’s third-largest economy, and a potential geopolitical reset in East Asia.

Markets are reading her as both hawkish and pro-growth, which means Japanese equities could continue their big run after a 30-year slumber. And regionally, she’s sending a clear message to Beijing: Japan is back.

5. Free Markets Are Dead — Long Live “State Capitalism”

Here’s the most important macro story no one wants to say out loud.

When Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore, was asked what created the Asian Economic Miracle, he answered, “Two things: state-based capitalism and the U.S. Navy.”

The West has finally resorted to this Asian-style economic planning approach out of desperation. The free market, as we knew it, is gone. Buried. Six feet under with Adam Smith’s invisible hand sticking out of the grave.

The U.S., U.K., and EU have all quietly adopted state-directed capitalism — a system where governments pick the winners, subsidize their friends, and call it “national security.”

Clean tech? Subsidized. Chips? Subsidized. Defense? Nationalized in all but name. Capital controls, industrial policy, and “resilience frameworks” are the new gospel. We’re not competing with China — we’re becoming China.

That means investors must think differently. The winners of this next decade will be the companies closest to the new state spigot, not the pure-market operators. To survive, follow the subsidy trail (as I did with my PLTR call last year) because that’s where the future — and the profits — are going.

Wrap Up

The map of the world is redrawing itself. The market we knew is evolving into something more challenging and increasingly political. Gold, silver, and bitcoin are shouting the same message:

“Get out of paper. Get real.”