The Debt Endgame: Why 2025 Matters

We're living through the final chapter of the greatest debt experiment in human history. Last week, Reuters declared what many economists have been whispering for months: "The debt supercycle has reached its final leg." US government debt just hit $37 trillion—a 520% increase in 25 years. That's not a typo. In a single generation, America's debt burden has grown five times over.

But here's the part that should terrify you: we're still accelerating.

Since the debt ceiling was lifted in July, federal borrowing has jumped another 519 billion in just three weeks. At this pace, we′ll hit 38 trillion before Christmas. Meanwhile, inflation just ticked up to 2.6% as Trump's tariffs push goods prices higher, and consumer spending is collapsing.

This isn't just another economic cycle. It's the end of the road for the current monetary system. And Bitcoin is the only exit ramp.

The Math That Doesn't Work

Federal debt now equals 740% of government revenue. Think about that. If the government collected every dollar of tax revenue and spent nothing—zero on defense, Medicare, Social Security, or even keeping the lights on—it would take seven and a half years just to pay off existing debt.

But it gets worse. Interest payments alone now consume 23% of all federal revenue. That's before spending a dime on anything else. By 2030, interest payments will eat up 40% of revenue. By 2035, more than half. This creates what economists call a "debt spiral." You borrow money to pay interest on money you already borrowed. Each year, the hole gets deeper. Each year, you need to borrow more just to stay afloat. The only way out is to print money. Lots of it.

This chart shows how we got here. For decades, central banks kept lowering interest rates to make debt payments manageable. But now we've hit zero. There's nowhere left to go except money printing.

The Inflation Trap

The Federal Reserve has two jobs: keep unemployment low and keep inflation around 2%. But when government debt is this high, those jobs become impossible to do at the same time.

If the Fed raises rates to fight inflation, it makes government debt payments explode. Higher rates mean higher interest costs. Higher interest costs mean bigger deficits. Bigger deficits mean more borrowing. More borrowing means more inflation.

If the Fed keeps rates low to help the government, inflation runs wild. We're already seeing this. Despite "fighting" inflation for three years, prices just jumped again. Tariffs are making it worse. Consumer spending is falling because people can't afford things. This is the trap. There's no way out that doesn't involve massive money printing.

This chart shows the exponential growth in federal spending. Notice the massive acceleration after 2020? We never came back down. Pre-pandemic spending was 4.4trillion. We′re now locked in at 6.75 trillion—53% higher.

That's not sustainable. Everyone knows it. But nobody wants to be the politician who cuts spending or raises taxes enough to matter. So they'll print instead.

Why Bitcoin Wins

For the first time in history, we have an alternative.

Bitcoin has a fixed supply. No government can print more. No central bank can debase it. No politician can inflate it away to pay for vote-buying programs.

When the money printing accelerates—and it will—people will need somewhere to store value. Gold worked in previous crises. But Bitcoin is better than gold. Gold is physical. It's hard to move, store, and verify. Governments can confiscate it. They did it in 1933 with Executive Order 6102. Bitcoin is digital. It's borderless. It's impossible to confiscate if you control your keys.

Venice Fi Financial Services

More importantly, Bitcoin generates yield. Traditional inflation hedges like gold just sit there. They don't produce income. Bitcoin, through platforms like can generate yield while protecting against currency debasement.

Venice Fi's order book-based lending platform lets you earn interest on your Bitcoin without giving up ownership. You lend to borrowers who need Bitcoin for trading or leverage. You earn yield. You keep your inflation protection. It's the best of both worlds: protection from monetary debasement and income generation.

The Infrastructure Revolution

But Bitcoin alone isn't enough. We need infrastructure. The crypto ecosystem today is like the early internet—fragmented and inefficient. Bitcoin derivatives like WBTC, cbBTC, and stBTC trade separately despite being the same underlying asset. Stablecoins like USDC, USDT, and USDe operate in isolation despite serving identical functions.

This fragmentation creates massive inefficiencies. Imagine if Apple stock traded at different prices depending on which broker you used. That's crypto today. Venice Fi solves this by treating derivatives as what they really are—different versions of the same asset with different risk profiles. Our order book aggregates liquidity across all Bitcoin derivatives and stablecoins, giving users better prices and deeper markets.

This matters because institutions need deep, liquid markets to allocate serious capital. The wealth management industry is shifting away from traditional 60/40 portfolios toward alternatives. Every 1% shift represents $500 billion in capital flows. Crypto is positioned to capture a massive chunk of that. But only if we build the right infrastructure.

What Happens Next

The debt endgame is playing out in real time. We can see it in the numbers. Government debt is accelerating. Interest payments are exploding. Inflation is returning despite three years of "fighting" it. Consumer spending is collapsing.

Politicians have three choices: default, restructure, or inflate. Default is political suicide. Restructuring requires international cooperation that doesn't exist. That leaves inflation. Expect massive money printing in the next crisis. Expect currency debasement. Expect real assets to outperform financial assets.

Bitcoin will be the biggest winner. It's the only asset that combines the scarcity of gold with the utility of modern financial infrastructure. And platforms like Venice Fi are building the tools to make Bitcoin productive, not just protective.