Most people come to crypto for:

• volatility,

• memes,

• and the chance to turn a small stack into something bigger.

Very few come here saying:

“I’m so excited to read about government debt and GDP growth.”

But whether we like it or not, macro is the water we’re all swimming in.

• When money is cheap, risk assets pump harder.

• When money is tight, liquidity disappears and even strong projects bleed.

• When governments and central banks are stressed, narratives like “hard money”, BTC, and stablecoins get louder.

So in this chapter, I want to do something simple:

Take one big theme in world finance –
high debt + slow growth –
and show how I, as a normal degen, connect it back to my crypto decisions.

No jargon. Just a mental model you can reuse.

You don’t need exact numbers to feel it:

• Governments have borrowed a lot over the last decades.

• Interest rates went from “almost zero” to “painful” very fast.

• Economic growth is… okay at best, but not explosive.

That mix creates a weird cocktail:

1. Governments owe a lot and now have to pay higher interest.

2. Central banks are stuck between fighting inflation and not killing growth.

3. Everyone is hoping growth will magically outrun the debt… someday.

It’s like running on a treadmill that slowly speeds up.
You can stay on for a while, but you’re always one misstep away from flying off.

Why should a crypto degen care?

Because this background:

• shapes interest rates,

• shapes risk appetite,

• and ultimately shapes how much “fun money” flows into crypto and onchain experiments.

How this shows up in normal people’s lives:

• Their cost of living is higher (food, rent, utilities).

• Their debt is more expensive (credit cards, car loans, mortgages).

• Their job feels less secure if the economy slows.

When high debt + slow growth stays with us:

• People spend more money on surviving,

• less money on investing or speculating,

• and become more sensitive to shocks (job loss, rate hikes, market crashes).

That matters because:

If people feel poor, scared, or overleveraged,
they won’t YOLO into risk the way they did in “free money” times.

Even crypto native money has an origin:
someone’s paycheck, someone’s business, someone’s leverage.

When the world runs on high debt and growth is meh, the game changes.

Here’s how I visualize it:

1. Bonds and interest rates

   • Governments need to sell a lot of bonds to roll their debt.

   • If investors demand higher yields, financing gets more painful.

   • Central banks can’t cut rates to zero easily without risking new inflation waves.

2. Equities and big tech

   • Profitable, strong companies can survive higher rates.

   • Hype sectors (like AI) can boom, but they’re also at risk of “bubble then crash” dynamics.

3. Risk assets (including crypto)

   • Money still flows to risk when people believe in growth and narratives.

   • But when stress hits, liquidity is pulled from the edges first –
     small caps, altcoins, illiquid tokens, random DeFi farms.
     

     

In short:

In a high-debt, slow-growth world,
I assume boom–bust cycles in risk assets get sharper,
and I don’t count on “infinite Fed rescue” like people used to.

Crypto plays a strange double role in this environment:

Narratives like:

• BTC as digital hard money

• stablecoins as parallel dollars

• DeFi as an alternative to banks

…all become louder when people feel that the old system is creaking.

High government debt + currency debasement fears =
more people at least look at crypto, even if they don’t fully understand it.

At the same time, crypto is:

• one of the riskiest corners of global markets,

• highly sensitive to liquidity conditions,

• dominated by speculation and leverage.

So crypto can:

• benefit from distrust in traditional finance,

• but also get crushed when global risk appetite collapses.

That’s why I never tell myself a simple story like:

“World is broken → crypto only goes up.”

Reality is more like:

“World is stressed → volatility and narrative trading get stronger.
If I manage risk well, I can survive and maybe thrive in that volatility.”

Here’s how this “World Finance #1” lens actually affects the way I move on Base and in crypto in general.

In a high-debt, slow-growth world:

• Good times are not permanent.

• Liquidity spikes can be followed by brutal withdrawals.

So when I see:

• euphoric price action,

• aggressive leverage,

• everyone flexing PnL,

I remind myself:

“This is a wave. Waves don’t last forever.”

It doesn’t mean I sit out every rally.
It means I don’t build my identity or portfolio around “this rally must continue”.

Because the macro backdrop is fragile:

• I’m more conservative with how big I size into narratives,

• especially high-beta plays like memecoins or small-cap tokens.

I still play.
But I play expecting the music to stop at unpredictable times.

When I think about Base, $JESSE, or any chain-level narrative:

• I allow myself to be early.

• But I don’t allow myself to be all-in.

In a world where:

• governments struggle with debt,

• banks are under pressure,

• and real yield is rare,

Any time I see crazy yields in crypto, I ask:

“Is this yield just another form of leverage or ponzinomics,
or does it actually come from real activity or risk transfer?”

This macro-aware question saves me from chasing pure illusions.

You don’t need to become a full-time macro nerd.
But I think having a basic checklist helps.

When I look at world finance, I roughly ask:

1. Is debt rising faster than growth?
   → If yes, future stress is baked into the system.

2. Are interest rates high relative to the last decade?
   → If yes, I assume cheap money is gone for now.

3. Are people feeling richer or poorer in real terms?
   → If poorer, I expect less “crazy retail risk-taking” overall.

4. Is my crypto positioning aligned with that reality?

   • Am I overexposed to illiquid bets?

   • Am I relying on a constant inflow of fresh money?

   • Am I assuming “this time is different” in a naive way?

If these answers don’t look healthy, I adjust—
even if the charts look good in the short term.