As A Man Thinketh

Every market move begins in the mind. Before charts turn or screens flash, someone believes. Then another believes. Then another… and reality follows.

Long before money or markets, a truth was written: “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The verse spoke of character, not currency. Belief shapes men. And, men shape markets.

On Thursday, we published The Great Repricing, explaining that markets move not when trillions shift from one account to another, but when perception changes. Within seventy-two hours, the world offered living proof. In the span of three days, a banker and a president each changed how they saw Bitcoin, and in doing so showed how belief, once again, precedes reality.

The Conversion of Jamie Dimon

For years, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, was the high priest of skepticism. Speaking at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference in September 2017, he called Bitcoin “stupid” and “dangerous,” and labeled it “a fraud.” Dimon went further, saying that if he caught any of his employees trading Bitcoin, he would “fire them in a second.” He compared the rise of the cryptocurrency to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s, predicting that it would all “blow up.” His speech captured Wall Street’s disdain and the belief that Bitcoin belonged to the fringe, not the boardroom.

Yet history had other plans. The prediction of collapse never came to pass.

Even as recently as January 2025, Dimon called Bitcoin “the criminals’ choice” and said it was used mainly by “sex traffickers, money launderers, and ransomware actors.” The contempt was not merely professional; it was moral.

But markets have a way of converting disbelief into policy. By May 2025, Dimon’s tone had softened. “We are going to allow you to buy it,” he told investors, “but we’re not going to custody it.” The bank that once warned clients away from Bitcoin was now quietly clearing a lane for them to trade it.

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan is preparing to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral for institutional loans, a move unthinkable just a year ago. The shift is subtle but profound. The institution that once mocked digital assets as toys is now treating them as security for credit.

Belief has moved from retail chatrooms to the marble corridors of global finance. It has done so in perfect sequence: first ridiculed, then resisted, and finally adopted.

The Redemption of Changpeng Zhao

If Jamie Dimon represents the slow conversion of Wall Street, Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, embodies the same journey in reverse: from dominance to disgrace, and back to redemption.

In November 2023, U.S. prosecutors charged Zhao and Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, with violating anti-money-laundering laws. The company paid a $4.3 billion fine, and Zhao pleaded guilty. He stepped down as CEO and served four months in federal prison.

On Wednesday, President Trump issued a full pardon for Zhao. In remarks to reporters, he said, “A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything.” He added, “They say what he did was not even a crime.” With those words, a president reframed guilt as a misunderstanding, and markets heard the message.

The pardon did not change the law; it changed the story. Within hours, social feeds, trading rooms, and crypto exchanges lit up. Bitcoin and Binance Coin both spiked. It was as if legitimacy had been restored by decree, belief rewritten at the highest level of power.

This is how markets evolve: not by rulebooks alone, but by the stories the powerful choose to tell. In Trump’s words lay a signal that crypto was not a crime scene but a frontier, and that those who built it were not outlaws but pioneers.

In the space of three days, Wall Street and Washington both changed their minds. One act of forgiveness. A move towards adoption. Together, they marked a shift not just in policy but in perception.

Belief is crossing the river. What was once mocked by bankers and prosecuted by regulators is now being folded into the establishment’s own machinery.  

The People’s Belief

If JPMorgan’s shift and Trump’s pardon show elite acceptance, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) reveals something deeper: the mass adoption of belief.

When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, the announcement barely hinted at what was coming. Within weeks, IBIT was flooded with inflows. Ordinary investors, people who had never owned a crypto wallet, were buying Bitcoin exposure through their regular brokerage accounts.

IBIT now manages roughly $90 billion in assets, a record for a Bitcoin fund, with Bitcoin trading near $108,000 and its market value hovering around $2.25 trillion.

IBIT did not change Bitcoin’s code or supply. What it changed was access. It turned conviction into convenience. It made faith tradable.

Why did it succeed so spectacularly?

Because belief, once it finds a safe channel, multiplies. IBIT became the bridge between retail confidence and institutional scale. It gave ordinary investors a way to participate in what they once only watched.

Even during Bitcoin’s recent price swings, the ETF’s structure helped cushion the turbulence. Flows into IBIT acted like ballast. Its steady demand from retirement accounts and wealth managers is blunting sharp declines. Belief, once housed in a regulated wrapper, began to confer stability instead of speculation.

In the end, IBIT is more than a fund. It is a mirror of collective conviction, the point at which an idea once confined to the digital frontier entered the bloodstream of everyday finance.

Belief Before Reality

Across finance, politics, and technology, the pattern is unmistakable. Belief moves first. Reality follows.

In the space of three days, a banker and a president changed how they treated Bitcoin. Neither mined a block nor wrote new code, yet the market moved because their views shifted.

From FDR’s gold decree to Dimon’s conversion, from Trump’s pardon to BlackRock’s ETF, every repricing begins the same way—with faith that something unreal can soon be real.

Long before algorithms, a proverb said it plainly: “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” And the Bhagavad Gita added: “The faith of all humans conforms to the nature of their mind. All people possess faith, and whatever the nature of their faith, that is verily what they are.”

Markets are only the latest proof. Every economy is a thought experiment written in real time. The world we live in tomorrow depends on what we choose to believe tonight.

1.      IREN – IREN Ltd. – $62.90 – Crypto mining

2.     SPRB – Spruce Biosciences Inc. – $133.24 – Biotechnology

3.      BE – Bloom Energy Corp. – $110.38 – Industrial energy

4.      CIFR – Cipher Mining Inc. – $20.66 – Digital assets

5.      PRAX – Praxis Precision Medicines Inc. – $173.97 – Biotechnology

6.      APLD – Applied Digital Corp. – $33.43 – Data centers

7.      BETR – Better Home & Finance Holding Co. – $79.52 – Mortgage finance

8.      CELC – Celcuity LLC – $70.97 – Biotechnology

9.      LEU – Centrus Energy Corp. – $383.00 – Nuclear materials

10.  CLS – Celestica Inc. – $296.62 – Electronics manufacturing

11.  QURE – uniQure B.V. – $61.01 – Gene therapy

12.  UUUU – Energy Fuels Inc. – $21.37 – Rare earths

13.  NKTR – Nektar Therapeutics – $60.10 – Biotechnology

14.  WDC – Western Digital Corp. – $129.43 – Data storage

15.  MU – Micron Technology Inc. – $219.02 – Semiconductors

16.  VSAT – Viasat Inc. – $38.11 – Satellite communications

17.  OUST – Ouster Inc. – $35.80 – Lidar technology

18.  RKLB – Rocket Lab USA Inc. – $64.56 – Space systems

19.  HUT – Hut 8 Mining Corp. – $47.66 – Crypto infrastructure

20.  LITE – Lumentum Holdings Inc. – $179.30 – Optical networks

We’ll be back tomorrow with our look at the week’s best performing stocks and ETFs. Stay tuned.

Disclaimer: These stock picks are for informational purposes only and are not investment advice. Please do your own research before investing.