HX Weekly: June 23 - June 27, 2025

Hello reader, welcome to the latest issue of HX Weekly!

So, what's HX Weekly all about?

Each Friday, we bring you a new edition of HX Weekly that includes three distinct sections.

In the first section, Thoughts on the Market, we'll offer insights into current economic and market news.

In the second section, HX Daily Redux, we'll revisit investing concepts, tactics, and more from past issues of HX Daily.

And in the third section, Market Wizard’s Wisdom, we’ll share thoughts, quotes, and theories from the greatest investing minds of all time.

Now, let's dive in!

I: Thoughts on the Market – Will Bitcoin Hit a $5 Trillion Market Cap Soon?

Over the past 15 years, Bitcoin has surged from a simple, niche digital experiment to a major global store of value.

First trading for mere cents in its early days, it crossed $1,000 by late 2013 and then broke through $20K in 2017.

Recently, it reached new heights of over $111K in May 2025.

As of June 26, 2025, Bitcoin is trading at approximately $107K, with a staggering market capitalization of about $2.1 trillion. Bitcoin has cemented its place among the world’s largest asset classes.

This meteoric rise reflects more than just price appreciation. Bitcoin is increasingly viewed as a hedge against inflation, a digital form of scarcity, and an alternative safe haven akin to gold.

Its maturation is underlined by growing institutional adoption, regulatory clarity, and macroeconomic trends that favor decentralization.

With prominent investors and institutional money managers recognizing Bitcoin's deep value potential and repositioning their portfolios, its evolution from a speculative asset to a legitimate store of wealth is entering a new and exciting chapter.

One such leading investor, Philippe Laffont, the billionaire founder of Coatue Management, has dramatically shifted his view on Bitcoin.

He now believes the crypto’s market value could climb as high as $5 trillion! That’s more than double its current valuation of roughly $2.1 trillion.

Laffont recently added bitcoin to Coatue’s “Fantastic 40,” a curated list of investments the firm expects to outperform through 2030.

You can click here to review Coatue’s highly anticipated annual East Meets West conference keynote deck, which was published on June 17.

In addition, you can click here for a recent CNBC interview where Laffont shared his thoughts on Bitcoin and more.

While Laffont once dismissed bitcoin, he now sees compelling reasons to believe it’s entering a powerful new growth phase.

One reason is valuation. Laffont points out that the world's total assets are worth an estimated $500 trillion, yet Bitcoin represents only about 0.5% of that.

He sees a path for Bitcoin to make up 1% to 2% of global assets, a significant jump that would place it in the same league as major asset classes like gold, which is valued at around $20 trillion, and global equities, valued at near $120 trillion.

He's also noted how Bitcoin's volatility appears to be coming down. Following former President Donald Trump's recent tariff announcements, Bitcoin declined 11%, a sharp move but still less severe than the Nasdaq 100's 12% drop over the same period.

For Laffont, this signals that Bitcoin may be evolving into a more stable, mature asset.

Another factor driving his optimism is the broader shift in global investor sentiment. With increasing talk of de-dollarization and concerns about the future of U.S. economic dominance, international investors are diversifying away from U.S. assets.

A recent Bank of America survey found that more than half of global investors now expect international equities to outperform over the next five years, compared to just 23% who are betting on U.S. markets.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar’s performance against major currencies, is down 10% year-to-date.

All of this has Laffont reevaluating his position.

“Do I own it now? Do I own it tomorrow or in a few days?” he said. “But every day, I do think, ‘Why do I not own it?’ Sometimes you have to change your mind and say, ‘Well, I made a mistake.’”

With shifting macro trends, growing institutional interest, and a maturing market structure, Bitcoin may be entering a new chapter. And for his part, Laffont doesn’t want to be left on the sidelines.

II: HX Daily Redux – Bitcoin to $1 Million

Last May we made the case for Bitcoin to hit $100,000 in a five-part series called The Case for Bitcoin $100,000. That is exactly what happened 6 months later.

At that point, we shared the series again and emphasized our case for Bitcoin to hit $1,000,000.

Yes, $1 million.

We think there is real potential for Bitcoin to hit $250,000 in the coming months - yes months - and after that $1 million is on the horizon.

Given that the investing community is coming around to our point of view, we wanted to share it again as a complement to our lead note about Philippe Laffont.

Here is that note. Enjoy!

We haven’t always been big supporters of Bitcoin.

We first learned about it back in 2013 (through one of our hedge fund colleagues), we thought it was an interesting curiosity.

We didn’t dismiss it, though, because we know the price of a security doesn’t have to match the value of the underlying asset. We see this in stocks all the time.

So - what if the security has NO underlying asset? We didn’t think it would matter.

As long as enough people BELIEVE it would have value, then it would have value. We have seen this with collectibles, art, precious metals and (perhaps the craziest example) currencies.

Back then, though, we could never conceive that ENOUGH people would ascribe value to Bitcoin to give it a $2 trillion value. Or eventually be as big or BIGGER than gold.

That conception dawned on us about a year ago.

It is the simplest overview of our view that Bitcoin is likely to go higher. Much higher.

We know many of you still may not agree. We understand that.

We encourage you, however, to read the piece and consider the possibility.

Take a small percentage of your portfolio and allocate it to Bitcoin. How ever much you are comfortable with having allocated. We don’t think you will regret it.

Guess what it be worth if it had the same market capitalization of gold?

BITCOIN $1,000,000.

IT. IS. COMING.

It is sometimes useful to take a step back and think of all the incredible technological advancements that have happened throughout our lifetimes.

I was born five decades ago, and 90%+ of the technology that I interact with every day didn't exist only a few decades ago. Not to mention, my engagement with that technology is a hundredfold what it was for my parents.

Now – whether that is a good or bad thing –it certainly is where we are in the world today.

As much as it feels very “normal” at this point, one of the biggest developments in technology in the last few decades has been “blockchain technology”. Specifically, the “cryptocurrency” bitcoin.

This is a moment where we want you to take a step back…

While bitcoin seems like the most ordinary thing in the world today, imagine if two decades ago I told you that an anonymous Japanese software developer (Satoshi Nakamoto) was creating a massive mathematical algorithm for a new digital (and safe) currency.

Sounds like something out of the “Matrix” movies.

Yet here we are in 2024 with this sci-fi idea having almost a $1.3 trillion market capitalization and trading over $18 billion a day. This idea is one of “The Magnificent Seven”!

It is easy for many older people to dismiss Bitcoin as digital “fool's gold”. It is some made up software algorithm with no inherent value, no cash flows and no history.

We don’t disagree!

That being said – what is “gold gold”? It is a rare metal with minimal industrial use that millions of people have decided to ascribe a value to for thousands of years.

This gets to our point about bitcoin.

GOLD is “gold” because humans have decided to ascribe the value to it. There was a real question about whether bitcoin would ever achieve that same status and we think it has.

One of the most fascinating aspects of bitcoin is to think about the future of ownership.

Look it up and you will see that there are currently just over 46 million bitcoin “wallets” that hold at least $1 in bitcoin. In the history of bitcoin there have been about 460 million wallets created.

Let’s put that into perspective of the almost EIGHT billion people on planet Earth…

This means only 0.5% of the planet’s population owns bitcoin today. We don’t know where that number is going in the future but we are pretty confident it is going higher.

The current market capitalization of gold is over $14 trillion, or more than ten times the market cap of bitcoin.

We think gold is great - and probably a buy right here – but it is not very useful. When is the last time you used gold to buy groceries or a car? Maybe it can be done, but it is quite complicated.

While you can’t directly buy groceries with bitcoin, it is a lot easier of a process than gold.

Let’s go back to the ownership numbers we discussed before.. it is difficult to get real data but most sources think about 10% of Americans own gold in some form. That is around 33 million people or two-thirds the number of people who own bitcoin in the world.

Again – there are EIGHT billion people on the planet! If just 1% decided to own bitcoin, that would be a +50% growth to the demand…with basically no growth in supply.

Currently (originally published May 14, 2024), almost 94% of the bitcoin that will ever be created has already been created. Take a bitcoin price of just about $65,000 and add +50% growth in demand with no real supply growth and know what price target you get?

$100,000! (Achieved on December 4th, 2024.)

We aren’t saying you should only own bitcoin or even that it should be the majority of your holdings, what we ARE saying is we think it has a ton of potential.

III: Market Wizard’s Wisdom - Phillipe Laffont

For this week’s “Market Wizard’s Wisdom” we thought we’d stick with our Phillipe Laffont theme and share a piece we published last July titled “Buying High and Selling Low: The Insights of Phillipe Laffont”

Enjoy!

In our thirty-year career as professional investors, we have been lucky to meet many talented investors.

One of the most talented is my old friend Phillipe Laffont.

Phillipe founded Coatue Capital Management in 1999. He is an alumnus of famed Tiger Management and was one of the original “Tiger Cubs.” Today, Coatue has grown into a diversified asset management company with over $40 billion in assets under management.

Phillipe and I got to know each other back when he formed Coatue, as I was at a similar fund at the time. We would sometimes talk about telecommunications and media stocks.

It has been incredible to see him build Coatue into one of history's most successful GROWTH managers.

He truly has a handle on identifying significant trends and monetizing them.

Another great thing about Phillipe is that he often shares his presentations to his investors with the public.

This is a rare opportunity to get insight into the process of one of the world’s most successful investors.

Recently, his firm posted a video of a presentation he gave at his firm’s annual East Meets West conference.

You can access a video of the full presentation and the slides here.

He kicked off this year’s conference with this contrarian statement…

“I want you to know that I have done well for 25 years by buying high and selling low. When you buy high, you buy the winners, and you let the market give you some direction and you buy companies that are working.”

He also noted that selling low helps you “get rid of some losers.”

This is the opposite of the traditional "buy low, sell high."

What does Phillipe mean by his statement that flies in the face of conventional wisdom?

We have written about growth investing and listening to the stock market's signals. Phillipe’s statement embodies both best practices.

When buying growth stocks, you are looking for stocks that can not only go up +100% but potentially +300%, +500%, +1000% or more.

A straightforward piece of math we like to share is to remember that for a stock to go up +500%, it must go up +100% first. This is a simple fact, but too many investors forget it.

They look at a stock that has doubled and think they missed it.

Many investors start their process by looking for the stocks that are down the most. The best investors I know look for the ones that are up the most and figure out if there is more upside.

Phillipe understands these principles well and has used them to become a billionaire.

He also understands the key to managing your losses.

His statement acknowledges that even if you think you are right – and may eventually be so – very often, a stock that is down is giving you a signal that you are wrong.

Instead of being a negative, it is helping you understand where you are making mistakes.

The key to successful GROWTH investing is cutting those losses while allowing your growth winners to realize their full potential.

We wanted to focus on this considerable picture insight, but we highly encourage you to watch the presentation and read the slides.

He analyzes AI and its impact on the markets intensively. He also provides insightful commentary on the software sector, the state of the private markets, and his core macro outlook.

While we don’t agree with all of it, we do agree with most of it and have HUGE respect for his insights.

Please do yourself a favor and go through this and his past presentations.

You can learn how buying high and selling low can make you a better investor!

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this week’s issue of HX Weekly…

Do you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback? Tell us more in the comment section or at [email protected].