Jordi Visser's "Turbulence Model" and Why the Next Rally Starts in Private Credit

I don't normally get excited about macro theories. After 25 years of ultra-endurance racing and a decade in the longevity space, I've learned to be skeptical of anyone who claims they can predict the future.

But when Jordi Visser talks, I listen.

Jordi joined me recently on PTL Signal for our second conversation, and what he laid out gave me goosebumps. Not because he's predicting easy times ahead — quite the opposite. But because he's identified the exact mechanism that could trigger Bitcoin's next major supercycle, and it's hiding in a place most crypto investors aren't even looking.

The Turbulence Model

Jordi's developed something he calls the "Turbulence Model" — a way of measuring market stress that goes beyond traditional metrics. And right now, that model is flashing signals that remind him of one very specific moment in history: the lead-up to 2008.

"The next great Bitcoin rally may begin in the least Bitcoin-looking place imaginable. Private credit."

Here's the setup: Private credit markets have exploded since the post-GFC era. Non-bank lenders stepped in where traditional banks pulled back after Dodd-Frank, and they've done it with massive leverage, opaque structures, and liquidity terms that don't match the underlying assets. The market sits at roughly $3–4 trillion today and is showing early cracks — JPMorgan has already marked down loans to private credit funds, and Morgan Stanley recently moved to limit redemptions after investors tried to pull nearly 11% of outstanding shares from one of its private credit funds.

Jordi believes we're heading toward a liquidity event in private credit that echoes the dynamics of 2008. And when that stress hits, something fascinating happens to Bitcoin.

The Liquidity Paradox

Most people assume Bitcoin crashes when liquidity dries up. They're half right. In the initial phase of a crisis, Bitcoin does fall — often harder than equities. We saw this in March 2020. We saw it when the regional banks collapsed in 2023.

But here's what Jordi has identified: Bitcoin's biggest surges have historically come immediately after these liquidity shocks, not before.

"In a real liquidity event, Bitcoin usually gets hit first along with everything else liquid," he's written. Investors rush for cash, they sell what they can, not what they want to. Bitcoin is liquid, it's clickable, it's easy to sell. But once that phase passes — once the Fed steps in, once liquidity returns — that's when Bitcoin separates from everything else.

The 2026 setup is this: private credit stress forces institutional selling, creating the liquidity squeeze. The Fed responds. And Bitcoin becomes the release valve for all that pent-up monetary energy. As Jordi frames it, the sequence is predictable: liquidation, then policy intervention, then renewed liquidity — and that's historically been the fuel for Bitcoin's biggest moves.

The Purest AI Trade

But here's where Jordi's thesis gets really interesting. He doesn't just see Bitcoin as a hedge against monetary debasement. He sees it as the purest AI trade in markets.

Think about what AI is actually doing: it's compressing time, eliminating middlemen, and making everything that can be automated, automated — at exponential speed.

Jordi has this concept he calls "Universal Beta Income" — the idea that because AI is disrupting traditional labor markets and forcing governments to run perpetual deficits, asset prices have to keep rising as a form of implicit universal basic income. Not because anyone planned it that way, but because the alternative is civil unrest.

"Today's UBI isn't a check from the government. It's Universal Beta Income: your wealth grows because the system has no choice."

Bitcoin benefits from this dynamic in multiple ways. As AI commoditises intelligence and destroys traditional corporate moats — particularly in software, where roughly 25% of business development company portfolios are now exposed — Bitcoin's moat only strengthens. Its decentralisation, fixed supply, and censorship resistance don't erode under competitive pressure. While every tech company has to fight for survival against AI disruption, Bitcoin just has to exist.

The Health Sovereignty Connection

Here's where I want to add my own layer to this. Because I've spent the last decade thinking about a different kind of sovereignty: health sovereignty.

What Jordi is describing — the compression of time, the elimination of middlemen, the need for self-custody of wealth — is exactly what's happening in health right now.

AI is democratising medical knowledge. Wearables and continuous glucose monitors are giving us real-time data that used to require hospital visits. Peptide therapies, longevity protocols, precision medicine — these are moving from boutique clinics to mainstream access.

Just as Bitcoin lets you opt out of a financial system that's increasingly centralised and fragile, optimal health protocols let you opt out of a healthcare system that's increasingly bureaucratic and reactive.

The people who will thrive in the 2030s aren't just the ones who understood Bitcoin early. They're the ones who understood that sovereignty extends across every domain of life. Financial sovereignty. Health sovereignty. Knowledge sovereignty.

What I'm Doing Now

Jordi's turbulence model suggests we're in for a bumpy 2026. The private credit situation won't resolve cleanly. There will be volatility. There will be moments of genuine fear.

My approach? Same as always: prepare for the worst, position for the best.

On the financial side, that means continuing to accumulate Bitcoin through the volatility. If Jordi's right and we get a liquidity-driven dip before the supercycle, that's a gift. If he's wrong and we just grind higher, I'm not trying to time the market anyway.

On the health side, it means doubling down on the protocols that build resilience. HRV training — something Jordi is genuinely obsessed with, enough that he runs an entire separate Substack dedicated to it. Metabolic flexibility. Immune system optimisation. The ability to handle stress, whatever form it takes.

The Bottom Line

Jordi Visser has a track record of calling major shifts before they become consensus. He was early on the AI trade. Early on the private credit risks. He called Bitcoin's frustrating 2025 consolidation a "silent IPO" — institutional distribution setting up the next decade of growth — when most people were losing patience with it. And now he's calling the next Bitcoin supercycle, triggered not by ETF flows or institutional adoption, but by a systemic stress event that most investors aren't even monitoring.

"The light is there. You just have to be willing to see it."

I see it. And I'm positioning accordingly.