From Trump tariffs to AI and memecoins! Silicon Valley guru Lonsdale and AI crypto czar Sacks analyze global economic change

In the latest episode of All-In Podcast, AI crypto czar David Sacks and his Silicon Valley partners invited Joe Lonsdale, a Silicon Valley investment heavyweight and co-founder of defense technology company Palantir, the founder of 8VC, a venture capital firm with more than $6 billion in assets under management. Talk about everything from US President Trump (Donald Trump)'s tariff policy to the latest changes in the AI chip market, and even the meme coin craze.

The tariff policy has taken a big turn, what does Trump want to do

US President Trump (Donald Trump) recently "three changes in one day" tariff policy, sometimes announcing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and canceling them all at once, which has caused the global market to shake. Lonsdale said Trump may be trying to use tariffs to pressure Canada to tighten controls on drug smuggling such as fentanyl and protect young Americans from drugs.

Palihapitiya, a well-known Silicon Valley investor who is one of the hosts, believes that this may be Trump's attempt to reshape the global economic order, free the United States from excessive dependence on the dollar, and restore the competitiveness of American companies. Moderator Freeberg said this could be one of Trump's long-term strategies to reshape the U.S. economy by cutting taxes, lowering government spending and strengthening local manufacturing.

Although such a policy will shock the market in the short term, it may be to "reduce inflation and increase the competitiveness of the US manufacturing industry", which may be beneficial to the United States in the long run.

Silicon Valley has close ties to Washington, whether the venture capital community has become the new magnate

In view of the growing relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington, many technology investors have participated in government decision-making, such as Palantir, Anduril and other defense technology companies have won a lot of defense contracts from the US government, and even AI giants have begun to cooperate with the government. But such developments have also drawn criticism: "Are Silicon Valley techies replacing traditional politicians as the new elite?"

Lonsdale said: "What we really want is to level the playing field and let the best technology win government contracts, rather than letting incumbents continue to monopolize by relationships." He also raises this central question:

Should the government be more transparent: open up all contract standards and allow more companies to compete fairly?

Whether the relationship between government and business is too close: Some outsiders believe that Silicon Valley is copying the rules of the game on Wall Street.

The AI cloud market is highly competitive, and CoreWeave is challenging AWS

CoreWeave, a highly talked about AI cloud service provider recently, is about to (IPO) an initial public offering with a valuation of $30 billion. CoreWeave has 250,000 Huida (Nvidia) GPUs, which is even more than Musk's (Elon Musk) Colossus AI resources.

The hosts also have different opinions on the development of CoreWeave. Some argue that CoreWeave's rise is based on a "direct to the hardware" design, which makes them faster and more efficient than AWS and Azure. Lonsdale believes that the key to CoreWeave's success is to operate like a "commodity exchange", hoarding GPUs and watching market supply to control liquidity. But AI chip technology is changing rapidly, and how long such a business can last is still unknown.

Meme coins fade and institutional funds flow back to DeFi

Last week, Trump suddenly posted on his social media, naming support for specific cryptocurrencies, causing Solana, XRP, and Cardano to soar by more than 30%. But Lonsdale believes that this is actually short-term hype, and the real big money will still flow back to DeFi.

Lonsdale sees 2025 as a growth driver for DeFi:

Meme frenzy subsides: The market is gradually returning to rationality, and institutional investors are looking for more robust crypto assets.

The rise of real-world asset (RWA): Tokenize traditional financial assets such as real estate and bonds to bring long-term value to DeFi.

Institutions are starting to enter the market: financial giants such as BlackRock (BlackRock), Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs) are actively deploying the crypto market.

Lonsdale bluntly said: "True DeFi should focus on creating long-term value, not be hijacked by short-term speculative markets."

Whether the establishment of a Bitcoin strategic reserve will set off a wave of hoarding

The U.S. government announced the creation of the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve (Bitcoin Strategic Reserve), similar to the digital gold version of Fort Knox (Fort Knox), dedicated to storing bitcoins confiscated by the government from criminal organizations. In addition, "digital asset inventory" has been set up to manage various government-held cryptocurrencies, such as Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), etc. The following are the key points of Bitcoin reserve and digital asset reserve policy:

Bitcoin reserves: The U.S. government will not sell, hold for a long time.

Digital asset inventory: The Ministry of Finance can decide whether to sell or exchange it for a more valuable asset.

Market impact: This symbolizes that cryptocurrencies will gradually become an asset class recognized by the government, and market confidence will increase.

Lonsdale said the government should set transparent market rules to avoid policy disruption in the market. AI crypto czar Sacks said that bitcoin is a "decentralized and issuerless" currency that deserves a special status, but other cryptocurrencies need to be subject to more market regulation.

The global market is turbulent, how to stabilize the US economy

The U.S. government now faces a major conundrum of how to reduce inflation and stabilize debt without triggering a recession. The following are possible solutions:

Reduce stock market overheating: The Trump administration's strategy may be to cool the stock market and reduce asset bubbles, thereby reducing consumption and curbing inflation.

Lower interest rates on long-term debt: If the market is volatile, investors may turn to buying government bonds, pushing down interest rates and allowing the U.S. government to "borrow cheaper" and reduce the burden on Treasuries.

Improving AI productivity: AI technology advances could boost U.S. productivity and reduce long-term economic pressures.

While these policies may cause short-term market volatility, if successful, they could return the U.S. economy to sound in the long run.

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