Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:
So, every Sunday morning I sit down to write a few thoughts.
Sometimes these thoughts end up being about life, other times they are on gold, geopolitical issues affecting the markets, or the economy.
Here are three thoughts for this morning:
1. Silver supply is tightening fast. The exit doors are closing from the fiat system. Industrial supply shortages are here, and banks are starting to block wire transactions for gold and silver.
Well, it looks like silver is about to make even bigger gains come Monday.
Kiyosaki expects about 15-20% skyscraper.
TESLA cannot get silver.
This Monday silver will gap up
from $91 an ounce to $107 an ounce.Yay
— Robert Kiyosaki (@theRealKiyosaki) January 15, 2026
And Taylor Kenney, who who works at ITM Trading Ltd., a gold and silver supply company is here to report from the inside, not AI hearsay, that banks are blocking wire transactions for gold and silver. The exit doors are closing in the fiat world. Better get yours while you still can imo. Check out Miles Franklin Precious Metals with supply in several countries (and authentic coins) for you and your needs. Mention “dollarcollapse dot com” for preferred pricing.
🚨Banks blocking the exits into gold and silver today, 1/16/26 pic.twitter.com/Dff1fyJiNA
— Taylor Kenney (@taylorkenneyitm) January 16, 2026
2. Coinbase, the United States biggest crypto exchange sure has a lot of clout on legistation. Here’s why.
Coinbase is the largest U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. The company’s software has 105 million users worldwide, while 10.8 million people actively exchange every month.
In fact, the company is so big and influential that Coinbase’s withdrawal of support for the CLARITY Act caused immediate postponement of the Senate vote.
After reviewing the Senate Banking draft text over the last 48hrs, Coinbase unfortunately can’t support the bill as written.
There are too many issues, including:
– A defacto ban on tokenized equities
– DeFi prohibitions, giving the government unlimited access to your financial…— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) January 14, 2026
First, the company is bigger than the US and deeply entrenched in the US political system at the Federal level. As it’s power has grown, so has the company’s need to spend money on lobbyists. In 2019, Coinbase spent $7.5 million on federal lobbying. Then in 2023, they spent one-third that, $2.9 million lobbying for crypto regulation.
Coinbase now has its own free network to pull the cords of decision behind the scenes. Their Global Advisory Council includes formed Defense Secretarys and high‑profile political figures such as David Plouffe (Obama’s 2008 campaign manager).
The other big factor is this:
In 2022, Coinbase and Blackrock (the world’s largest asset manager) launched a strategic partnership. The partnership connects Coinbase Prime with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, which is BlackRock’s end-to-end investment management system used by institutional clients.
To add to that, Coinbase is listed as the bitcoin custodian for the BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). The fastest growing and most successful Bitcoin ETF on the market. It’s growing at least 4x-5x faster than VanEck’s Gold ETF (GDX), when it was first released.
So, you know which senators might get a call from a friend of a friend of Larry Fink if they don’t support the incentives Blackrock… (and Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase) are looking for.
3. There’s good news too. Bi-partisan efforts to “Make American Great Again” aren’t dead. Check out the decline in US Fentanyl deaths.
Originally this thought was about a post by Michael Arouet on X, he posted a chart showing a reduction of fentanyl deaths. Since then, he deleted the post, which means I can’t show you the chart, but I did find a similar chart. So, here’s some good news, and some of my original comments… They’re also applicable.
At first glance it would be easy to attribute the drop in drug overdose deaths to the arrival of the Trump, but that’s not the case. When you look closely at the CDC chart, below, the drop in deaths by fentanyl starts before the blonde-haired Eagle landed at the White House.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
One of the great things about X and Elon Musk’s GrokAI is that you can fact check posts in search of truth. You just write @grok and then ask a question like you’re commenting on a post. Under the same post, two users found more information about the decline in fentanyl deaths.
“According to provisional CDC data and sources like USAFacts and JAMA, US fentanyl overdose deaths decreased slightly in 2023 (72,776, down 1.4% from 2022), with the decline starting around August 2023 and accelerating sharply in 2024 to about a 23% drop in total overdoses.”
And some of the factors linked…
“…linked to the decline in US overdose deaths (2023-2024) include:
– Increased naloxone distribution and access, saving lives by reversing overdoses (CDC, health orgs).
– Expanded addiction treatment and harm reduction programs.
– Public awareness campaigns and education reducing usage.
– Shifts in drug use (e.g., smoking vs. injecting, fewer street opioid users).
– Potential supply disruptions from law enforcement efforts.
Data shows decline began mid-2023, accelerating in 2024; causations are multifaceted, per sources like CDC and JAMA.”
So, there are two things to celebrate. The first is the decline in fentanyl-related deaths. The second, and perhaps even more hopeful is that the US government is not entirely broken. And that means, we are not bleakly staring into the abyss of US history. Change is happening. Some good, and some bad, but here it’s all good.
