Dear Reader,
You lock your doors. You shred your mail. You watch what you post online.
But on June 18th, five federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve, proposed a rule that reaches somewhere most people never think to protect…
Your money.
Private companies now issue their own digital dollars, used for payments and transfers online.
The new rule would require those companies to identify every customer the same way a bank does.
Your name, attached to every digital dollar you buy.
Most people missed it.
They were busy celebrating the July 11th ban on the Fed’s digital dollar, which does nothing to stop the private versions.
Now you might be thinking…
“I don’t use digital dollars. Why should I care?”
Because Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi and Capital One are among 21 financial institutions planning a joint one, targeting launch next year.
A digital dollar backed by Visa and Mastercard went live September 30th.
PayPal’s is already in Venmo.
Zelle has announced one too.
Sooner or later, the dollars in your accounts will likely move through these systems.
And any privacy-minded person should read this twice…
Right now, the rule only covers buying digital dollars from the company.
But the agencies are considering going further.
Tracking your name every time those dollars change hands.
Person to person. Payment to payment.
Public comments closed August 21st. Now the decision is up to them.
It’s being framed as crime prevention.
It always is… isn’t it?
What’s in your safe is yours. What’s in the bank is a promise.
Digital dollars work like the bank.
A company stands behind every one, and by law that company must be able to freeze them.
But some digital assets have no company or bank behind them at all. You hold them directly, like what’s in your safe.
That’s why I recorded a free presentation on our “Digital Dollar Immunity” System.
It shows how we hold a portion of our assets outside that system.
4,500+ members are already doing this.
If you have $50k+ saved for retirement and want to protect your family from whatever comes next, watch it now:
Click Here To Reveal The “Digital Dollar Immunity” System →
To your wealth,
Tan Gera, CFA®
Decentralized Masters
P.S. The public comment window closed August 21st. The final rule is still coming.
Iran Threatens US Diplomats. Oil Has Not Priced In Next Steps.
The weekend delivered a concentrated burst of escalation, and oil traders are walking into Monday’s session with more to weigh than Friday’s $116.72 Brent settle suggests.
Market Snapshot
Brent opened around $113 before recovering toward $117, trading in a wide intraday band. Brent closed last week at $116.72, a gain of 6.2% over five sessions and 9.5% over the past month. The premium embedded in that price is real, but the weekend’s developments raise the question of whether it is still large enough. Reuters reported Friday that French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned that any renewed escalation between Iran and the United States would have no winners and would likely have serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices. WTI was tracking near $103.
Stocks in Focus
- XLE: The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF closed at $69.33 on October 23. Any further spike in crude should extend that run, though the ETF is now trading roughly 35% above its estimated intrinsic value.
- FRO (Frontline): The tanker play remains central to this conflict. Frontline said its VLCCs earned $152,700 a day in Q2 and that it entered Q3 already 86% booked at $156,900. A credible Gulf closure or serious targeting of tanker lanes would push those day rates sharply higher. Frontline CEO Lars Barstad has said tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz should quickly increase if the US and Iran reach a credible deal, which frames the downside risk as much as the upside.
- Saudi Aramco: Direct exposure to Houthi targeting of Saudi infrastructure. The most serious attack in October came on October 10, when a strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 300, according to Saudi authorities and Reuters reporting at the time. Each intercepted salvo reinforces the supply-disruption premium already in Brent.
What Actually Happened This Weekend
The New York Times reported Saturday that two Iranian officials, including a member of the IRGC, said Tehran was preparing to target US diplomats and personnel, and described Americans as “fair game” in response to Iranian officials being killed by the US and Israel. The report came after Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned in an Oct. 23 memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Iran had “substantially increased” efforts to target U.S. personnel.
The US has been moving some diplomats and family members out of several Middle East posts, including Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan, CNN reported. On the military side, Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Ali Abdollahi said US military vessels will not be allowed to enter the Persian Gulf “under any circumstances,” according to Iranian state media accounts carried by multiple outlets. The remarks came amid renewed speculation about additional US and Israeli strikes after the US election.
Saudi Arabia reported that debris from the interception of two ballistic missiles launched by Iran-aligned Houthis toward the Makkah and Madinah regions fell at several locations in western Saudi Arabia on Saturday, according to Saudi Civil Defense statements carried by regional media. That makes at least two intercepts tied to those launches over the 48-hour window ending Sunday night.
Sector and Catalyst Watch
Israelis go to the polls on October 27 to elect the 26th Knesset, two days from now, and US Election Day is November 3. US and Israeli decision-making has been sensitive to those dates, with Axios and The Atlantic reporting that the timing of any renewed strikes has been debated around the elections.
Risk Radar
The credible assassination threat against US diplomats is a qualitative escalation. Targeting personnel rather than infrastructure changes the political calculus in Washington and could accelerate strike authorization faster than markets currently expect. Iran has also signaled it could expand targets to include infrastructure such as undersea cables if fighting resumes, according to recent reporting on statements carried by Iranian state media.
The Cheat Sheet
- Top Theme: The conflict shifted from military posturing to personnel targeting over the weekend, narrowing the gap between escalation and direct confrontation.
- Stock to Watch: XLE, at a record close. Long energy remains the consensus trade, and the weekend’s events reinforce it, though the ETF is no longer cheap.
- Sector to Watch: Energy, led by integrated majors and tanker operators. Frontline’s spot-heavy revenue model means it moves hardest when rates move.
- Biggest Risk: A retaliatory US strike authorized after the Israel vote on October 27 and before the November 3 US midterms, which would sharply shift every asset with Gulf exposure.
- One Thing to Remember: Brent at $116.72 is already pricing significant conflict premium. What it is not fully pricing is a scenario where US diplomatic personnel become active targets, triggering a response that closes the Strait of Hormuz to allied shipping.
