Pod 46: Wartime Markets, Broken Signals, and the Future of Venture Capital
Markets don't appear to be behaving the way they typically do.
In this episode, Danny Perez is joined by Cantilever partners Brendan and Jon to explore a macro environment that may be shifting beneath the surface. Over the past month, equities have declined — but so have traditional safe havens like bonds and gold. Bitcoin, meanwhile, has remained relatively steady, raising real questions about how different assets are responding to global stress.
The team introduces the concept of a "wartime macro" regime, where geopolitical conflict, energy shocks, and constrained liquidity begin to reshape market dynamics — and examines why the Federal Reserve finds itself increasingly boxed in.
The conversation then turns to venture capital. With AI driving efficiency gains and large-scale layoffs across major companies, the economics of building and scaling startups may be fundamentally changing. If companies require less capital and smaller teams, what does that mean for venture as an asset class?
The episode closes by exploring how Bitcoin venture may already offer a preview of this new model — one built on constraint, discipline, and long-term resilience.
Read the 2026 Bitcoin Ecosystem report by Epoch Ventures. Brendan and Jon co-authored the Bitcoin Venture Capital section, which you can find on pages 171 to 184.