My next guest measures what everyone else debates. He spent two decades inside global banking, was CEO of a $5 billion company, and built Solstice Laboratory in Dubai to apply the tools of physics to markets — starting with his own family's capital. His book is The Entropy Trap. Mickey Maini, welcome to Wall Street to Mena.
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Your book argues we are not in a normal cycle. Something bigger is happening. In plain English — what is the thesis?
We see a lot of different things happening. War. Sanctions. Tariffs. AI disruption. The Fed trapped. And deep inside our gut is telling us these are not normal things. We are not in a normal cycle. And our gut is right. We are actually between two financial systems. In physics we call it a phase transition. This phase transition follows a very specific path of five stages. First, governments print money. Second, they spend money. Third, they try to control the system. Fourth, you see fracture. And finally, coercion. We are in stage three. We are five to seven years away from a new system. And the next two years are probably going to be the most difficult.
What are the signals telling you that this is a transition and not just a rough patch?
Just like water — at 99 degrees it is water, at 100 degrees it becomes gas. The key is knowing what is happening below the surface between 99 and 100 degrees. Physics has those tools. When we measured the last 3,000 years of history at Solstice, the same three stresses appeared through every transition: geopolitics, debt, and innovation. Three things then happen in a transition. First, correlations between assets move toward one. In July you saw gold, oil, stocks, and bonds all fall at the same time. Everything moves together. Second, the medicine works less and less. The Fed first intervened in 2008 — that lasted seven years. The 2020 intervention lasted 18 months. Then 2022, nine months. Every intervention produces less impact. Third, stresses become intertwined and amplify each other. Higher oil from the Hormuz situation leads to higher inflation, leads to higher bond yields, leads to higher funding rates for AI, leads to AI stocks going down. Everything becomes interrelated.
Why did you set up Solstice Laboratory?
The economic system stopped working. And you can see the impacts — the velocity of money, the money multiplier, the transmission of Federal Reserve policy. A lot of things stop working. I first noticed this in 1998 when I advised the Indonesian government and overnight the rupiah tanked 80%. What I noticed was the system is bigger than the markets. The VIX only looks at today and tomorrow. The VIX is not looking at AI. It is not looking at a multipolar world. You have to look at the bigger system. Physics allows you to do that. And because of the digital era, everything moves extremely fast. You need live signals in real time. That is what Solstice Laboratory does — it takes the gauges from science to measure the pressure. When you can measure, you can navigate. When you can navigate, you can forecast better.
Central banks keep buying gold month after month. Why?
For central banks, gold is now a higher-value asset than dollar bonds. By 2030 we believe gold will be higher in value than all dollar assets. But even in drawdowns when gold prices have gone down, why do central banks keep buying? China has been buying for 21 consecutive months. The reason is that central banks are the insurers of the financial system. And how does an insurer of the financial system reinsure itself? Through gold. Why are they buying reinsurance? Because in this transition period, the chance of a policy misstep is very high. When you have a policy misstep, you have a problem. Gold is how they hedge that risk. And this will only continue to accelerate.
Thank you so much, Mickey Maini.
I appreciate it. There is a book out there — The Entropy Trap. I also have a Substack where we regularly publish signals that family offices and individuals can track for free. It is my giveback.
