$315 trillion. That's the approximate size of global debt as of 2024, and a growing share of it is denominated in U.S. dollars that debtor nations cannot print.
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Macro strategist Brent Johnson has been beating this drum for years with his Dollar Milkshake Theory, and his latest analysis is blunt: a global currency crisis isn't a risk scenario — it's mathematically inevitable.
Meanwhile, options market veteran Cem Karsan is painting an equally stark picture from a different angle. His thesis: we've already entered a wartime economy that's reshaping global capital flows, fueling political populism, and driving structural inflation.
Together, these two frameworks tell a story that every crypto native should internalize.
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The Milkshake Endgame
Johnson's argument is deceptively simple. The world borrowed heavily in dollars during decades of easy money.
Now, as liquidity tightens, all that dollar-denominated debt creates relentless demand for the greenback — sucking capital out of weaker economies like a milkshake through a straw. The dollar strengthens because other currencies are breaking, not because the U.S. economy is fundamentally healthy.
The irony is thick: everyone talks about dedollarization — BRICS summits, yuan-denominated oil trades, gold accumulation by central banks — but Johnson argues the desire to escape the dollar and the ability to do so are wildly different things.
Sovereign debt structures, trade settlement infrastructure, and deep U.S. capital markets create a gravitational pull that political rhetoric alone can't overcome. U.S. assets, he predicts, will continue to outperform precisely because the rest of the world's monetary plumbing is more fragile.
Wartime Economics Aren't Temporary
Karsan's framework adds a geopolitical layer that makes the picture even more volatile. Deglobalization isn't a buzzword — it's military supply chains being rebuilt, energy markets being weaponized, and governments everywhere choosing inflation over austerity because populist electorates demand it.
Conflicts are expected to intensify, not resolve. That means more fiscal spending, more money printing, and more authoritarianism dressed up as national security.
Here's what connects the two theses: wartime economics accelerates the sovereign debt spiral that Johnson describes. Governments spend more, borrow more, and eventually their currencies buckle under the weight. The dollar may be the last domino, but it's still a domino.
Why This Is a Bitcoin Story
Neither Johnson nor Karsan is a crypto evangelist. That's what makes their analyses so useful.
When traditional macro thinkers independently converge on "currency crises are inevitable" and "governments will choose inflation over fiscal discipline," they're describing exactly the environment that non-sovereign, hard-capped money was designed for.
Bitcoin doesn't need dedollarization to succeed. It doesn't need the dollar to collapse. It just needs people in Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria, Egypt — and eventually the G7 — to look at their purchasing power evaporating and reach for an exit that no central bank controls.
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That process is already underway, one broken currency at a time.
The question isn't whether a currency crisis happens. The question is whether you have exposure to an asset that no government can debase when it does.
Stablecoins, for all their utility, won't save you here — they're still denominated in the fiat currencies under stress. DeFi protocols built on sound collateral, and Bitcoin as a base-layer settlement asset, are the tools that actually hedge this macro regime.
The math is the math. The only variable is timing — and that's the one thing nobody can predict.
