In This Article
The market is in chaos with macro fear, a crashing stock market, and a geopolitical crisis unfolding. To make sense of this chaos, David Duong, Head of Global Research, Coinbase Institutional, talks to 99Bitcoins.com about de-dollarization, altcoins, the Federal Reserve changes and rate cuts, and the K-shaped economy.
On De-dollarization
“We’ve all seen what’s happened with precious metals more recently. People keep bringing that back to the narrative of Bitcoin as digital gold. And I acknowledge that this has been a very nice soundbite for a very long time in a way that has kind of appealed to macro investors and for someone who doesn’t get into the weeds of the technology itself.”
“But I think the ultimate question really is that there a de-dollarization kind of trend happening? And is that why people are buying fresh metals or is that why people are buying gold is that why silver went up, for example. I would actually argue no. What you know, part of that, was a catalyst for the fiscal situation, not just in the US but abroad as well. Certainly, some of the developments we’ve seen on a geopolitical level contributed to this, and this isn’t new.”
“We saw central banks abroad buying gold since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, where we certainly saw that because of sanctions on Russia, more sovereign entities were concerned about this and started accumulating gold. And so from that kind of standpoint, yes, there was an $80 trillion Asian trade. Certainly, we saw it in 2025 as well. I mean, once upon a time, $35 trillion worth of assets people were buying were either unhedged or underhedged. And now you’ve seen a lot of non-discretionary dollar selling.”
This week on the @CoinbaseInsto Markets Podcast, we discuss the sharp decline in crypto prices, after precious metals broke lower. We explore who's the marginal buyer for BTC in this environment and talk about the recent positive regulatory developments that many missed. Watch 👇 pic.twitter.com/fCYiAjZqgg
— David Duong🛡️ (@DavidDuong) February 4, 2026
On Altcoins
I would argue that actually gold has been a momentum play. And it’s a momentum play that Bitcoin did not take part in.
“We are catching up to that now. I think the market structure is being slowly rebuilt.”
“I think that people are soured on altcoins, for example and the painting is a very broad brush of planning out the narrative and saying like there’s Bitcoin and there’s everything else right now. And that’s, that’s how people are treating it. And that’s not fair because a lot of these different altcoins, different sectors do very different things.”
On Fed Rate Cut
“There’s obviously an interest rate element to precious metals as well, particularly for gold, because gold has no cash flow. And so typically when you see the Fed cut rates, typically gold does a little bit better.”
“I would say the last Fed meeting was no surprise to me.”
“It was interesting to see two major dissents. I think Myron was an expected kind of dissent to a 25 basis point cut. But also, Christopher Waller stepped in. And some people believe that this was more of a political statement from Waller rather than a view. I don’t take it that way. I think with Waller, we’ve seen in the past, him actually be on both sides of this. He’s been a rate hawk in the past. He’s also been a rate dove in the past. He responds to the market.”
“But the statement that the Fed and the FOMC kind of presented as well, talking about the alleviation of some of their concerns surrounding the labor market, I think that this was bang in line with what I was expecting them to say as well, given kind of the data that we’ve been getting.”
“I haven’t changed my mind on what I think the Fed’s going to do for 2026.”
“The market was pricing in, it’s still pricing in, about two 25 basis point cuts in 2026. But if you look at investment banks and where they are, the spectrum of expectations are so wide right now.”
It’s crazy to me. JP Morgan pointing out zero cuts in 2026. Goldman Sachs pointing out two cuts in 2026, although they pushed that back to the second half of the year. UBS is saying one cut. There’s no consensus right now on where people think the Fed’s going to be. Bloomberg put out their comments that it’s going to be 100 basis points of cuts in 2026!
On K-shaped economy
“Part of this is because the economy looks very, very different than the one that we’re familiar with because we have this K-shaped economy, which I think a lot of people have started speaking about more over the last few months. The idea of a K-shaped economy isn’t new. People started talking about this back in the pandemic, and it really took off then. That is still true.”
“But I think also AI is distorting what’s happening because once upon a time, you used to have all these companies who would say, “we’re not doing very well, so we’re going to need to lay off 100,000 people.” And that was a very common kind of narrative because obviously, if you’re not doing well as a company, you can’t sustain the workforce you might have. But look at what’s going on in 2025. Look at what’s going on in 2026. It is not that. These companies are like, hey, we’re super profitable. We’re doing really, really well. We’re still letting go of 100,000 people. And you’re like, wait, what? You’re doing well and you’re letting go of people? What’s happening here? And a big part of it is they’re a lot more productive. They’re a lot more efficient. Their workforce can do more with less people. And so they’re letting go of people.”
So you have this strange dynamic where the companies are doing well, but people are not because they’re losing their jobs.
“And a lot of them are white collar workers. A lot of them are middle management. And suddenly you have this kind of dynamic where it’s just like, Well, what’s going to happen? Because the economy seems to be doing okay because these companies are doing okay. But consumption needs to come down, right? Because the labor market’s not doing great.”
“I think that this is what the Fed’s reckoning with right now. And they don’t know how to deal with it because they have a mandate. And it’s a dual mandate. They need to respond to inflation. They clearly need to respond to the labor market. But the underlying part of that is that’s what’s written. By definition, this is what you need to respond to. It’s this dual mandate. But the implicit nature of that is “I want the economy to do well.” That’s what the Fed is there to do.”
We’re in this dynamic where the economy is doing sort of okay, but people are not. And the mandate is not. We’re seeing a disinflationary trend, and we’re seeing the labor market being vulnerable. So I think this is what makes the Fed’s job so hard right now.
DISCOVER: Next 1000X Crypto: 10+ Crypto Tokens That Can Hit 1000x in 2026
Why you can trust 99Bitcoins
Established in 2013, 99Bitcoin’s team members have been crypto experts since Bitcoin’s Early days.
Weekly Research
100k+Monthly readers
Expert contributors
2000+Crypto Projects Reviewed
