The hat

‎

I’ve resisted this for a while.

I’ve always believed this information matters. Not in a self-important way, but in the sense that understanding how the financial system actually works, who benefits, and who pays the price, shouldn’t be locked behind a permanent paywall. That’s the whole point. I’ve spent years gathering this, learning it the hard way, and I want it out there. For free. For anyone who wants it. For people to share, argue about, and build on.

That hasn’t changed. All content stays free. Always. Every article, every rant, every occasionally correct prediction. No paywall. No catch.

But recently, more and more of you have been asking if there’s a way to give something back. Emails, DMs, even a few awkward “can I just send you money?” messages. So here we are. The hat is out. You can put something in it if you want to. The music doesn’t stop if it comes back empty.

If you do subscribe, I feel like you should get something for it beyond a warm feeling. So you’ll get two things. First, you’ll get everything 24 hours before it goes public. And secondly, I’ll be running a monthly Q&A where you can ask whatever you want and I’ll answer the interesting ones in a free post. I reserve the right to define “interesting”, which mostly means I’ll skip the ones where the answer is “I don’t know” unless “I don’t know” is itself interesting.

That’s it. No Discord. No private Telegram group. No “exclusive webinars”. I write. You read. Sometimes you write back and I learn something. That last part is important to me and it’s why everything stays open for everyone. Some of the best leads I’ve followed came from readers who knew something I didn’t.

There's also a tier called 'Inner Circle'. Same content, flexible pricing. It's there for those of you who looked at $8 and thought 'that's not enough'. I tried explaining that it really is. You wouldn't listen.

I should be transparent about the mechanics. Substack takes 10%. Stripe takes about 3%. I get the rest, which I will almost certainly deploy into junior mining positions of questionable wisdom. You’ve been warned.

One thing worth knowing: if you subscribe through the Substack app on your phone, Apple or Google take roughly 30% on top. So the better way is to subscribe directly through a browser. Same result, fewer middlemen.

If you’ve been reading for free and plan to keep reading for free, genuinely, thank you. The readership is the point. The writing only works if people read it, argue with it, and occasionally send me a message at 2am saying “have you seen what just happened on the SGE?”

Keep doing that.

And if you’re staying free and feel like doing something with the money you’re not spending on me, find a food bank near you. A homeless shelter. Someone in your neighbourhood who’s having a rough month. Put it there. I’d rather that money goes to someone who truly needs it than to my Substack metrics.

While I have your attention, I’ve also set up two other publications.

No1’s Daily Digest is a daily, curated US morning briefing covering what moved across precious metals, geopolitics, and macro. Everything there is free to read. The minimal Substack price is $5, but thanks to Chirag I managed to create a lifetime 80% discount (link - should be automatically applied). Final tally: $1/month. This feels right to keep my servers from filing for bankruptcy.

No1’s Portfolio is exactly what it sounds like. My actual trades, my actual money, published with a short delay so you can watch me make decisions of varying quality in near real-time. This one isn’t free. It shouldn’t be. You’re getting a front-row seat to my purse. It’s also not ready yet. The infrastructure needs work, and I’d rather launch it properly than have you pay for a construction site. If you’d be interested, just subscribe for free if you want to be notified when it goes live. If you did accidentally pay already, I’ll add a few months free once things are actually running.

As for G&G: everything stays free. Subscribers get a day’s head start.

If you put something in the hat, thank you.
And if you didn't, keep reading anyway.

That was always the deal.

No1