Ray Dalio says that the rules-based order is over. This brings monetary debasement, dollar risk, and neutral, permissionless financial railroads back to the centre of the macro discourse.
Ray Dalio said that the order that came after World War II has “officially broken down”. The world is now in what he calls a “law of the jungle” phase, where power, not rules, decides what happens. Crypto investors are using this time to make the case for assets that work outside of government control.
In his most recent piece on X about both internal and external chaos, the founder of Bridgewater Associates said that big powers are now stuck in a “prisoner’s dilemma” that never ends. They have to either escalate or look weak in commerce, technology, cash flows, and, more and more, military flashpoints, which makes what he terms “stupid wars” very simple to start.
Dalio remarked that outside chaos often clashes with stress inside. When economies are weak and there are significant differences in wealth, governments always raise taxes and “big increases in the supply of money” that make current claims less valuable instead of forcing people to default.
Bitcoin (BTC $67,899) and gold are examples of apolitical assets that have done well in this kind of atmosphere. The argument for crypto is simple: As governments rely more on sanctions, asset freezes, and printing money, investors will look more closely at assets that can be kept and moved without using a bank or a government-backed payment system.
Liquidity expansion and hard asset performance
Econovis reported that worldwide broad money grew from $26 trillion in 2000 to a projected $142 trillion in 2025. Asymmetry, a former fund manager, says that every major BTC rally has happened at the same time as M2 growth, and “the next wave is building.”
Gold prices have also generally followed the US M2 money supply. This is because gold is a traditional way to protect against the growth of money.
Dalio’s framework also shows how states use asset freezes, capital market bans, and embargoes as standard tactics. This shows how much traditional savings and payments depend on political discretion and jurisdictional risk, and it puts the case for an apolitical, borderless money front and center.
Fiscal dominance and the case for neutral rails
Hunter Horsley, the CEO of Bitwise, summed up what the crypto community was thinking with one comment: Is anyone working on global, permissionless, apolitical monetary assets and financial rails? Maybe important.
From the portfolio side, Asymmetry made a similar point. They said that the setup Dalio is describing a world order that is breaking apart on top of what macro analysts like Lyn Alden or Luke Gromen call fiscal dominance, where government borrowing needs effectively dictate central bank policy is one of the “most structurally bullish backdrops for hard assets in 80 years.”
Dalio’s warning is not a straight prediction for Bitcoin, and the argument for investing in crypto is still affected by many things, such as interest rates, regulations, market liquidity, and risk appetite. What he said recently provides a clear macro storyline that many in the crypto sector are using to argue that demand for “neutral money” could increase as the world becomes more divided.