One Billion Users

Mark This Date: May 14, 2027

Assuming you’re old enough… do you remember the first time you had regular internet access?

If you do, make a mental note.

For all intents and purposes, the dawn of the internet can be dated to 1969 — when the U.S. government first switched on ARPANET, connecting users at four universities.

Of course, it didn’t really take off in the United States until the mid-1990s — roughly the same time frame as Microsoft’s launch of Windows 95 and AOL’s relentless mailings of CD-ROMs. (Remember that?)

By 2005, the internet reached 1 billion people worldwide. It took 36 years.

Cryptocurrency is on track to achieve the same feat in less than 20 years.

Already, 16½ years after Bitcoin’s launch, the number of worldwide users totals roughly 580 million.

The 1 billion number is easily in reach given the current path.

“In 2020, only five years ago, it was around 100 million,” says Paradigm senior crypto analyst Chris Campbell. “That’s over a 5x explosion in just five years — and it’s still picking up speed.”

As you might already know, James Altucher is our resident crypto evangelist at Paradigm. He had the foresight to recommend Bitcoin in 2013 when it was a mere $114. (Checking our screens this morning, it’s $107,543.)

James sees the crypto big picture. Complementing his skill set is Chris. Chris gets deep in the weeds — reading white papers, attending conferences, dissecting which cryptos are trash and which have the potential for life-changing gains.

Just to put that 580 million user figure in perspective, Chris says “that’s 6.8% of the entire world’s population now dabbling in cryptocurrency. More than the number of people who hold American Express or use PayPal.”

The adoption rate is especially steep in places we once called the “Third World.” We’re talking about folks who leapfrogged the landline era, going straight to inexpensive smartphones. For many of them, crypto is how they preserve purchasing power while governments debase their official fiat currencies.

“Nigeria has one of the highest crypto adoption rates in the world,” says Chris — about 40%. And Vietnam, about 30%.

Compare that with about 65 million Americans, or 28% of the adult population.

“If adoption continues on its current trajectory, conservative estimates say we’ll see 1 billion crypto users by May 14, 2027 — two decades faster than the internet,” says Chris.

Other estimates suggest it could happen as early as next year.

What’s more, the growth only accelerates from there: One billion internet users in 2005 became 4.5 billion by 2020.

With crypto, that 4.5 billion threshold could happen even faster: “Growth isn’t being slowed down by hardware, broadband or mobile rollouts,” Chris points out. “The infrastructure is already built. An estimated 5.5 billion people have smartphones. Around 70% of them use those phones for payments.

“At that point, crypto wouldn’t just be a new part of the financial system — it would be a full-blown parallel financial system with incredible influence over the world.”

Which means the present moment abounds with possibility: “Just like with the internet, the smartphone or the early days of stock investing, the most asymmetrical gains go to those who act before the crowd even knows there’s a line.”

Don’t get the wrong idea: The U.S. market matters. It matters enormously — simply because the United States still dominates traditional finance. The real breakthrough comes when crypto gets the U.S. government’s blessing.

And as we’ve been saying for several months now, the Trump 47 administration is much more crypto-friendly than any U.S. administration that’s come before, including Trump 45.

In particular, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Paul Atkins says Washington must adapt to the crypto landscape. Otherwise, innovators overseas will leave Americans eating their dust.

Which is why James Altucher — the guy who recommended Bitcoin at $114 — says this Wednesday will be a crucial day. According to his Wall Street connections, Wednesday is when Atkins and the SEC will unleash a $30 trillion disruption to the crypto space.

Some coins will stumble as a result… while James says five tiny cryptos are set to soar — potentially rising 10x in the next 12–18 months.

Follow this link and James will show you exactly what he expects to be announced on Wednesday — and how you can position yourself to profit.

Weak Dollar, Strong Stocks

The U.S. stock market is set to end the first half of the year at an all-time high.

With a few trading hours left in the month of June the S&P 500 sits at 6,182. Its performance during the second quarter of 2025 will be the best since the fourth quarter of 2023.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the U.S. dollar is on track for its worst start to a year, relative to other major currencies, since 1973.

All else being equal, American multinationals benefit when the dollar is weak. As Paradigm’s value-investing pro Zach Scheidt explained it to us in 2018, “The weak U.S. dollar makes it easier for companies to sell their products overseas for cheaper prices.

“You see, a weak U.S. dollar naturally corresponds to stronger other currencies. And if international currencies are stronger, it means consumers overseas can more easily afford the products sold by U.S. companies.

“It also helps that when corporations generate profits in euros, yen or British pounds, those profits get reported to investors in dollar terms. And again, profits generated in euros naturally translate to more ‘weak’ U.S. dollars.”

That said, you can be forgiven for wondering if the stock market’s looking a little “toppy” right now.

“There’s a lot of euphoria out there as we take back those all time-highs,” Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk subscribers. “This short week would be the perfect time for the market to experience a hiccup or two.”

One potential cause for concern is that small-cap stocks are lagging their bigger brethren.

Only last week did the Russell 2000 small-cap index rise back above its 200-day moving average. “That looks bullish on the surface,” Greg says. “Can it survive and continue higher if the broad market runs into trouble? I’m not so sure.”

Precious metals got whacked in Sunday night trading, but they’re gamely staging a recovery as the first half of the year winds down.

At last check, the bid on gold is up $16 to $3,289. Yes, that’s well below the $3,500 peak in April — but still up smartly from $2,625 at the start of the year. Silver took its sweet time catching up with gold — but it started the year under $29 and as we write is back within reach of $36. Not bad.

Copper is on track to end the first half of 2025 over $5 a pound, after starting around $4. Speaking of copper, congratulations are in order for Rickards’ Insider Intel readers who bagged an 88% gain on Friday playing options on a major copper-and-gold producer.

Crude starts the week down over 1% at $64.74 — a considerable drop after starting the year close to $72.

That $107k Bitcoin price we mentioned earlier? A modest gain from roughly $100k at the start of the year. The really big gain came last November and December.

Trump’s AI Power Play

Looking ahead to the second half of the year, it appears the Trump administration is getting serious about addressing “the monster that ate the power grid.”

Since early 2024, we’ve been pounding the table about AI’s enormous demand for electricity — and the fact the U.S. power grid has no more capacity now than it did in 2011. Last week amid a heat wave, large swaths of the nation were at risk of rolling blackouts.

Now CNBC reports the Trump administration “is readying a package of executive actions aimed at boosting energy supply to power the U.S. expansion of artificial intelligence, according to four sources familiar with the planning…

“The moves under consideration include making it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid, and providing federal land on which to build the data centers needed to expand AI technology, according to the sources.”

When he took office in January the president ordered his administration to come up with an “AI Action Plan.” CNBC’s sources say the report is due by Wednesday, July 23. “The White House is considering making July 23 ‘AI Action Day’ to draw attention to the report and demonstrate its commitment to expanding the industry, two of the sources said.”

A few days earlier, the president is set to speak at an AI-and-energy event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday July 15.

Here at Paradigm, we’re already on the case identifying the best-in-class investments in this space ahead of these dates — so watch this space.

Hopefully you took advantage of our unofficial recommendation back on May 7 — Constellation Energy (CEG) is up nearly 20% since then.

Tesla’s Edge on Detroit

Tesla rolled out its “robotaxi” a few days ago — and in the process started running Detroit off the road.

The debut of a dozen or so vehicles in Austin, Texas came with some expected glitches — one of the vehicles briefly veering into oncoming traffic, for example — but as Tesla sees it, that’s essential to the process of perfecting the technology.

Longer term, “Tesla is about to have a live, learning network of autonomous vehicles generating data, revenue and operational experience 24/7,” says Paradigm tech-investing maven Ray Blanco.

“Every mile driven, every edge case encountered, every successful pickup will feed back into Tesla's neural network. This creates a compounding advantage that traditional automakers simply cannot match.”

We’ll come back to the traditional automakers in a moment. Right now, ponder this: “Goldman Sachs projects Tesla's robotaxi revenue could reach $115 million by 2027,” says Ray, “scaling rapidly from there. But that could just be the beginning.

“The real disruption comes when Tesla's manufacturing machine turns toward robotaxis. Imagine hundreds of thousands or even millions of Tesla robotaxis offering rides at a fraction of current Uber/Lyft prices.”

As for General Motors and Ford, they’re “caught in a tough spot,” Ray goes on. “They're spending billions trying to develop autonomous technology while their core business — selling cars to individual consumers — faces potential obsolescence.

“But for a lot of potential customers, the question remains: Why buy a car when you can summon a robotaxi for 20 or 25 cents per mile?”

No, it’s not the death of Detroit. But for GM and Ford, “their growth prospects have fundamentally changed,” Ray says.

“Instead of investing billions in traditional vehicle manufacturing, they're now going to be forced to spend on autonomous technology they may never successfully monetize.”

A Million Ain’t What It Used to Be

On the subject of “everyday millionaires” — a quadrupling in the number of people with a net worth between $1–5 million since 2000 — a reader writes…

“Sixty years ago I bought the farm from my dad and with a factory job I was able to keep my home and the land and now I am a millionaire because the dollar is worth less and getting close to worthless. A paper value of paper money means nothing.

“The Carter inflation was worse than the Biden inflation, but every year the dollar is worth less. When I was in the Army I was paid $90 a month.”

Dave responds: On further reflection, there’s more to this proliferation of millionaires than just the aging population, the falling value of the dollar and the insane ramp-up in home prices.

It’s also that this “wealth” is frighteningly illiquid. The bulk of these paper millionaires’ wealth is tied up in home equity and tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

Little wonder many of them are living paycheck to paycheck, right?

Best regards,

Dave Gonigam
Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets