2025-2026 Predictions
Macro
The US Dollar will be devalued by 15-30% against its major fiat trading pairs (i.e. the Euro, Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, Canadian Dollar, and most importantly Chinese Yuan) within the first 6 months of the incoming Trump administration.
Except for China, broad-based tariffs of 10-20% will only be levied to retaliate against countries that manipulate their currency to gain a trading advantage against the United States.
Tariffs will be gradually raised to 60%+ on Chinese imports to complete the "strategic decoupling" of the two economies. Other major economics will follow the lead of the US effectively imposing a new "cordon sanitaire" upon China. The trade deficit, and indeed total trade between the US and China, will approach zero.
The overall US trade deficit with the rest of the world will drop from 3% to near zero, and potentially turn to a trade surplus.
US oil production will increase by more than 3 million barrels per day and oil prices will decline by 15-30%. Canadian oil production will increase by the same amount or more in percentage terms.
DOGE will succeed at reducing total government spending, excluding interest on debt, by at least 5% of GDP. Never bet against Elon.
The yield on 10 Year treasuries will fall below 3%. Average annual CPI Inflation will stay below 4%. 30 year mortgage rates will fall to 5% or lower.
The US federal budget will balance as DOGE succeeds, new treasury issuance declines, and Fed/Treasury replaces high interest, short term debt with low interest, long term debt.
Annual US real GDP growth will exceed 3%.
US real wages for workers will rise more than 4%.
Politics
The incumbent President's approval rating by the 2026 midterm elections will exceed 50% and Republicans will maintain or expand their majorities in both the House and Senate.
TikTok will be sold to a major American firm in the first half of 2025.
The Russia-Ukraine war will come to an end with a negotiated settlement before the end of 2025. Russia will keep most of the territory it currently controls and Ukraine will not join NATO.
China will not invade Taiwan.
Tensions between China and the US will decline.
Markets and Technology
EVTOLs (Joby, Archer), drones (Anduril, Skydio, Zipline), and humanoids (Tesla, Figure) will become the dominant technological “atoms” market narratives as it becomes increasingly clear that AI will deliver an autonomous future much sooner than markets anticipate.
US equities market capitalization, as a percentage of global total, will exceed 70%.
The value of Elon's companies will rise from ~2% of S&P 500 to more than 6%. Elon Musk will become the first trillionaire.
Tesla's FSD will get better and better, and safer and safer, but will still require a human behind the wheel outside of controlled, or highly mapped, environments. You will not be able to buy a Tesla without a wheel and sit in the back while it drives you somewhere.
Tesla will launch a robotaxi service in at least one major American city and you will be able to ride in a Tesla without a steering wheel in a controlled environment via an Uber like app. This service will most likely first launch in the Boring Company's Vegas Loop tunnel system.
Joby Aviation will conduct commercial air taxi operations in at least one major American city, likely NYC and/or LA, by end of 2026. There will no major safety incidents.
Anduril's market capitalization will exceed $100 billion shortly after IPO in 2025.
Meta's Orion, Meta's AR glasses, will be released to consumers before the end of 2026 and be a smash hit - the "iPhone moment" for smartglasses. I will buy at least one pair.
The US obesity rate will begin its plummet from its peak of 42% to sub 35% as GLP-1s like Ozempic become widely adopted by American society. American life expectancy will increase by 1-3 years.
The Texas Triangle will continue to be the fastest growing megaregion in the country as the physical economy, energy production and advanced manufacturing, go through a new secular boom. New housing supply coupled with real wage growth will drive both economic and population growth.
US energy consumption will rise to the highest levels ever recorded as AI and manufacturing sectors demand ever more energy consumption.
Construction of new US nuclear plants will continue, but nuclear will not be a significant net contributor to energy consumption growth during.
Bitcoin & Crypto
My base case is that Bitcoin rises to $200k and bull case is to $400k in 2025. The maximum drawdown from the top will not exceed 50%.
Private wealth management solutions via companies like Figure will become widespread for the Crypto rich. That Matrix meme from 2017 will become true - you won't have to sell your coins.
Bitcoin, and other major cryptoassets like Ethereum and Solana, will become institutionalized. This institutionalization will enable banks and other financial institutions like Figure or Coinbase, to lend to consumers against their crypto collateral. Long time HODLers will be able to buy cars, houses, and make everyday purchases financed by their crypto holdings without selling.
Tokenization of financial assets, especially Big Tech stocks with deep liquidity, will expand private wealth management solutions to crypto and tech employees and investors. Onchain equities will become far more popular so equity holders can leverage their equities as collateral using smart contracts.
Stablecoin market capitalization will exceed $2 trillion. Onchain treasury and private credit markets will each exceed $1 trillion.
New Crypto startups based in the USA will increase from 20% of global total currently to over 50%.
ICOs will once again become effectively legal and the de facto method for US-based crypto companies to "go public".
AI and Software Engineering
LLMs will be able to solve >50% of Math Olympiad problems, significantly ahead of recent forecasts by the AI industry.
The job of "software engineer" will become less and less about programming and languages and more and more about conceptualizing products, defining requirements, reviewing the work of many engineers (i.e. AI agents), and testing/QA. Former technical team leads, technical product managers, and software architects will thrive in this new software paradigm.
Invariant/Fuzz testing will become standard practice before launching smart contracts on Ethereum and its L2s. LLMs will be able to identify invariants for a smart contract system and then build or iterate a test suite with full context of the codebase. Automated smart contract audits will be regularly performed by LLMs.